Dark Space: Avilon

by Jasper T. Scott

  The should-have-been-stunned thug’s blue eyes were bright and wild, full of a frightening energy. He was high as krak, blissed out of his mind. No wonder he’d been able to resist the stun blast.

  Ethan felt the young man go rummaging through his jacket pockets, looking for his credit chip. Feeling came back to his hands and feet with stabbing prickles, but with a gun to his head, Ethan didn’t like his chances of turning this around. Blue Eyes found his cred chip and dangled it in front of Ethan’s face. “What’s yer pin, stupid?” he asked.

  Ethan blinked at him and smacked his lips like a guppy, pretending he still couldn’t speak.

  “You got a wife waitin’ for ya, don’t be stupid, man. I’m gonna count to three.”

  Ethan gave up the pin on two. Blue Eyes smiled and plugged his credit chip into a portable scanner. He noted that another chip was plugged in the other end. The scanner was probably stolen and untraceable. Not to mention that if the White Skulls ran The Grunge, even local enforcers wouldn’t follow up on his report. Ethan watched helplessly as they stole a whole day of his life. He may as well have stayed in bed and slept.

  “Pleasure doin’ business with ya,” Blue Eyes said, patting him on the shoulder. Before he went, he withdrew a small packet of a white sparkling silver powder, each granule looking like a tiny metallic ball. Before he realized what was happening, the thug forced his mouth open and emptied the contents of the packet. Ethan tried to spit it out, but the young man held his mouth shut.

  “Now, now. That’s the good stuff. You don’t want to waste that.”

  The silver powder fizzed and burned inside his mouth, leaving a tangy, metallic aftertaste on the back of his tongue. Mere seconds later he felt feeling return to his limbs, his muscles and nerves singing with fire. His mind cleared and his fatigue washed away with a surge of energy. He felt revitalized, stronger than ever. His hands balled into fists and his pulse beat in his ears like a drum.

  “Krakkin’ rush, right? That’s on the house, old man. You want more, you go to Silver Burroughs, East Grunge. Tell the sentry you’re going to see Krillix and Scag; they’ll point the way. Don’t take krak from no other Skulls on your way down. See you soon, krakhead.”

  He stole Ethan’s sidearm and ran off, cackling with glee. The other one retreated more slowly, keeping his sidearm trained on Ethan as he left. Ethan glared murder at him, wondering whether he was Krillix or Scag. When both goons had disappeared into the shadows once more, Ethan peeled himself off the bactcrete floor. His nerves felt like they were all on fire, and his head was pounding with a headache that was more deserving of twenty pints than the one he’d drunk. He stood up and whirled around in a dizzy circle, looking for his cab. Ethan realized that now he could see just fine in the poorly-lit garage. Details that he’d missed before came clear—hairline fractures in the pavement, stress fractures in the ceiling, water trickling from a leaky pipe and dripping to the floor in a shadowy corner. . . .

  His senses were alive and buzzing like he’d never felt them before, and despite that, he felt incredibly relaxed—collected and calm. All side effects of the dose of Bliss he’d just been forced to take.

  Ethan started toward his cab, rifling through his pockets, looking for the car’s ignition stick. Then he realized that all his pockets were empty. He blinked, stopping beside the cab. They hadn’t tried to steal the car, so why steal the ignition? Ethan let out a roar of frustration and kicked the driver’s door.

  His comm piece trilled. Reaching up, he answered, “Hello?”

  “Ethan . . . Are you close?” Alara was panting.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My water broke.”

  Ethan stood eyeing the locked door of his cab, his mind and heart racing. “What? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. We’re going to have to buy some new sheets.”

  “Never mind that. I’ll . . . I’ll be right there, okay?”

  “You sure? I can take an ambulance.”

  Ethan tried to imagine how much an ambulance ride would cost, and then he remembered the woman at the bar and her offer to take him for a ride in her car. “I’m sure. I’ll be right there, okay? Wait for me.”

  “Ok—aaay!” she screamed.

  “What was that?” he asked, adrenaline screaming through him in addition to the Bliss and all the stims.

  “A contraction, Ethan! Hurry up and get over here!”

  “Right. See you soon, Kiddie.”

  Ethan ran all the way back to the lifts. When he emerged in the bar once more, he scanned the room quickly, anxiously.

  It took just a moment to find her. She was sitting right where she’d been when he’d left, still sipping her glowing green cocktail.

  Ethan ran up to her, breathless, and gestured helplessly to his empty holster; then to the pair of White Skulls still sitting in a corner booth, nursing cheap ales. He recovered his stamina quickly, thanks to the Bliss, and he had to force himself to focus in order to ignore the assault on his senses—he could see the peeling paint in the darkest corner of the bar; he could hear himself blink; he could even hear what the White Skulls were whispering to each other in their corner booth—

  “. . . looks edgy. He must be high. Guess they got him.”

  “So what’s he doin’ back here?”

  Ethan ignored them.

  The young woman sitting at the bar watched him with her bright turquoise eyes. She regarded him with a frown. He found he could actually hear her pulse. “I tried to warn you,” she said.

  “My wife’s going into labor. They stole my cab’s ignition. You mentioned something about a ride?”

  The young woman came to her feet in an instant. “Let’s go.” On her way out, she snapped her fingers at a young, handsome man sitting alone in one of the booths. He joined them, and Ethan eyed that man suspiciously, wondering if this was some kind of setup.

  “Relax. He’s my driver.”

  Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “You have a driver?”

  “And a penthouse. What’s your point?”

  Clearly she wasn’t after a sugar daddy, but that wasn’t what had him narrowing his eyes. “You said you rode in my cab.”

  “He’s a recent hire.”

  “I see.”

  They walked out of the bar and rode the lift tubes up rather than down. On level 30 they entered another level of parking, this one much different from the dingy sub-level where Ethan had left his cab. Level 30 parking was bright and airy, with color-coded piping for each section of the garage. They walked up to a six-door limousine with tinted black privacy windows and a glossy white hull. The limo’s grav lifts shimmered and hummed to life, lifting it half a meter off the ground before they even reached the doors. The driver remotely triggered those, too, and they slid open with a synchronized swish, revealing a plush beige interior.

  Ethan climbed in after the young woman. The doors slid shut behind them.

  “Where to?” the driver asked.

  “East Grunge, Fort Carlson, level nine, apartment 9G,” Ethan said.

  “Got it.”

  The limo raced out of its parking space, its driver deftly maneuvering through narrow lanes until they came to a pair of glowing blue openings, shielded from unauthorized entry. No doubt it cost a fortune to park up here. The opening on their side deactivated a split second before they would have collided with the shield, and they raced out into a busy street. The driver dodged and wove through traffic, making Ethan raise his eyebrows a few times. The pilot was good.

  City streets raced by below them in a blur of life and color. Pedestrians were unafraid to walk the streets on level 25, even in the dead of night. Apartments and offices flashed by to either side of them. There were no bars on the windows this high up.

  “Not so bad up here, is it?” the young woman sitting beside him asked.

  “You said you have a penthouse?” he asked, turning to her.

  She nodded. “That’s right.”

  “What were you doing in my cab?”
/>   “I told you—”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence. I work most of my shifts below level 10. You have money. You don’t ever have to go that far down. And you don’t need to take a cab.”

  “All right,” she said. “I was looking for pilots for my business. Good ones.”

  “Good ones? What—to drive limos?” Ethan asked.

  “Not exactly. Your record is one of the best I’ve seen. You fly better half asleep than most people fly when they’re wide awake.”

  “What do you need with good pilots?” Ethan insisted.

  “That’s my business.”

  “So . . . you passed on me.”

  “I didn’t pass. I was going to make an offer before you threatened to break my hand.”

  Ethan regarded her carefully. “You had no way of knowing I’d be at that bar tonight.”

  “No, but if you hadn’t been, I’d have been in your cab tomorrow.”

  “All right, what’s the offer?”

  “Five fifty per day. No tax.”

  “No tax? How do you manage that?”

  “Again, that’s my business.”

  “What is your business?”

  The woman laughed. “With 550 a day, what do you care?”

  “I care.”

  “Let’s talk more about that later. Right now you have a pregnant wife to get to the hospital.”

  It wasn’t more than another five minutes before they arrived. The limo stopped right outside the front entrance. Ethan ran past the outer security door, and then waited impatiently for it to close and the inner door to open. From there he rode the lift up to the ninth floor and ran down the hall to 9G. Their apartment door opened to reveal Alara sitting on the kitchen floor, flushed and sweating, and clutching her belly with both hands.

  “What took you so long?” she asked, regarding him with tear-stained cheeks and bright violet eyes.

  He shook his head and swept her up off the floor. Even pregnant, she didn’t weigh much more than a hundred and fifty pounds. His body still buzzing with Bliss, she felt like only twenty to him.

  “I’m here now,” he breathed beside her ear while racing back down the corridor to the lift tubes. The apartment door slid shut automatically behind them and the lights inside turned off. They rode the lift down in silence, except for Alara’s gasping and panting.

  Once outside, Ethan helped Alara into the limo and climbed in beside her.

  “Boy or girl?” the woman with turquoise eyes asked, looking Alara up and down.

  “Girl,” Alara breathed.

  Ethan grabbed Alara’s hand in both of his. The door slid shut beside them and the limo raced away. Another contraction came and Alara squeezed Ethan’s hand until her knuckles turned white and his hand began to throb.

  “Fre-ek!” she said.

  Turquoise Eyes laughed her musical laugh once more and the limo leapt up, rising vertically through the slithering gray mist, past more than a dozen stories of barred windows.

  “Where did you get a limo?” Alara asked.

  He shook his head. “It’s a long story.”

  “From me.” Alara turned, and Turquoise Eyes offered a hand for shaking. “Valari.”

  “She offered me a job,” Ethan explained quickly as Valari and his wife shook hands. He could feel the adrenaline seeping away, leaving him cold, but he was still riding high with Bliss. So high, that he could hear two heartbeats besides his own—that of his wife, and his unborn daughter.

  “Limousine driver,” Valari clarified.

  “I see . . . that’s—ni—icccce!” Another contraction left Ethan’s hand aching, and Alara’s back arching with pain. She panted and gasped for air.

  “Where are you taking us?” Ethan asked, looking out the window as the gray mist began to dissipate. The limo was still climbing, leaving grasping gray tendrils in its wake.

  “Public health care, please,” Alara said.

  Valari shook her head. “Absolutely not. Do you know how many mothers die during childbirth in public hospitals? I’ll pay. Consider it a signing bonus for your new job, Ethan.”

  Ethan said nothing to that. He still hadn’t figured out what this new job would be, and he was afraid to ask again with Alara present. Valari had been short on details, and the lie she’d told Alara wasn’t likely. There was no way a limo driver made five fifty per day, tax free. Ethan’s Bliss-pumped mind raced, trying to come up with ways that he might make that kind of money, but all the answers pointed to drugs and crime. He’d been down that road once before, and he’d sworn he’d never do it again, but now . . .

  He wasn’t sure he could afford to say no.

  They arrived at the hospital after just another few minutes. Medics were already waiting for them with a hover gurney. Ethan kissed his wife goodbye, told her he’d see her soon, and looked on with wide eyes, wondering how much all of this was going to cost. The medics rushed Alara off to a private room, taking her through sliding glass doors inlaid with sparkling patterns that looked like they were made from diamonds.

  Ethan watched until Alara disappeared, and then turned to look around the entrance of the hospital, noticing the crystal pillars, and the shimmering fountains. Bright fans of light lit up an elaborate facade. He turned to Valari. She stood beside him, just beyond the open door of her limousine. “How much is all this going to cost?”

  “I told you, you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I don’t like to agree to something before I know what it is,” he replied.

  “I see.”

  “Well?”

  “I don’t think you’ll object to the work.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “It’ll have to be.”

  Ethan eyed her a moment longer, his eyes blazing into hers, trying to see what malice lay lurking behind the warm, tropical seas he saw sparkling there. His sight enhanced by the dose of Bliss he’d taken, Ethan noticed that her facial muscles were relaxed, not tense as they should have been if she felt any kind of aggression toward him. Valari was genuinely trying to help, but there was something else. She was hiding something. Her left eye was twitching ever-so-slightly with the strain. But by her own admission she was hiding the true nature of the job she was offering him.

  “You should be with your wife,” Valari said, interrupting his analysis of her body language. “We can finish our discussion later. I’ll wait.”

  He nodded and took off at a run, racing after the medics who’d taken his wife away. He caught up to them in a long, white corridor and took his wife’s hand in his. Hers was cold and clammy. He hoped that wasn’t a bad sign. “Alara? How are you feeling?”

  She smiled up at him. “You sure you want to see this?”

  He nodded. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  * * *

  In the delivery room, Ethan found more medics and their assistants waiting. The room was full of glowing holo displays and gleaming equipment.

  Alara was fitted with a breathing mask and given a shot. The rest of her labor was handled by involuntary stimulation of her muscles and a powerful anesthesia that brought a lazy smile to Alara’s previously contorted face.

  Just a few minutes later, Trinity slid out almost effortlessly, smeared with blood and screaming her lungs out. Ethan looked on in awe as the umbilical cord was cut and tied, and the attendants cleaned her up, swaddling her in white robes. They brought her to her mother a moment later, and removed Alara’s oxygen mask. She smiled a sleepy smile as she looked down on their daughter. Ethan alternated stroking Alara’s forehead and his daughter’s tiny, pink cheek. She’d stopped crying already.

  “She’s beautiful!” Alara whispered.

  Ethan shook his head, feeling a rush of euphoria that had nothing to do with the Bliss that was slowly ebbing from his system. A sudden hope burned fierce and bright inside of him. Despite all the hardship and all the struggles, now he knew why he had to live and what he had to do. She was his purpose. He had to protect this little an
gel and keep her from harm, no matter what.

  One of Trinity’s tiny hands appeared from within the blanket, grasping at the air, searching for something solid to grab onto. Ethan stuck out his hand, and she grabbed his thumb, squeezing it until it turned white.

  “She’s a strong little thing, isn’t she?”

  “Just like her father,” Alara said, smiling brightly up at him.

  He smiled back and kissed her forehead. “No,” he whispered. “Like her mother. I love you—both of you.”

  “And we love you, Ethan.”

  Ethan stood staring at the two of them for long minutes, the time melting away. Then the medics came to push Alara out into another room, and they took Trinity away to get her shots.

  That broke the spell, and suddenly Ethan remembered that he’d left Valari waiting at the entrance of the ER. He glanced toward the exit.

  “I need to go,” he said. “Valari wanted to talk to me some more about that job offer.”

  “How much is she offering?”

  “A lot. Maybe half a kilobyte per day.”

  Alara’s eyes flew wide. “What are you waiting for? Go! We’ll still be here when you get back. Hurry. Don’t give her time to change her mind.”

  “Right.” Ethan nodded and kissed his wife on the lips, and then he turned and raced out of the delivery room ahead of the medics and Alara’s gurney.

  He heard them calling after him—something about scrubs—but he didn’t have time to change. He found Valari in the waiting room, reading a holo magazine and sipping a cup of caf. She turned to him with a smile when he appeared standing in front of her, out of breath from running the entire way.

  “Well? Good news I hope?”

  “They’re both fine,” he said. “Sorry I kept you waiting.”

  Valari rose to her feet. “Don’t worry, I understand.”

  “You said you wanted to speak to me about that job. . . .”

  “Yes, but you’re going to have to trust me. Do you trust me, Ethan?”

  “We just met.”

  “It’s a yes or no question.”

  “Fine. Yes. Let’s see where that takes us.”

  “Good. Wait here,” Valari said.

  She walked over to a medic who stood on one side of the waiting room studying a holo chart. They spoke privately for a moment, and then both of them came striding toward him.