“Sorry,” Megyn Alexander said. Sloane glanced at her face. She looked apologetic and confused all at once. She had something in her hand. A notebook of some kind.
“This is crazy,” Sloane showed the big man the palms of his hands, “Wait a minute, okay?”
The narrow, dark eyes looked up at Jack Sloane. They darted towards the tall woman, lecherously taking in every inch of her curvaceous physique.
“You want to keep a leash on your tart, mate,” He growled.
The other two men had stayed behind their big friend. They were emboldened by Sloane’s gesture. They were both in their thirties, Sloane guessed. The man on Sloane’s left had a head tattoo partially covered by cheap everlast spray on hair. Both men stank of stale alcohol, but one man’s mouth stank of a decaying tooth. It had been a long time since Sloane had smelled anything as disgusting. He stepped back from the foul stench. This unconscious movement prompted the men to attack him.
He was caught unawares. The surprise of the sudden rush startled him. He was frozen for a moment, and then they were on top of him. It was a brutal, savage attack. The largest of the three men hammered down onto the back of Sloane’s neck with a murderous, furious power. Bad hair guy clawed weakly at Sloane’s jacket, trying to get Pam out of his pocket. Stink breath had a hard right hand. He buried it into Sloane’s stomach over and over, like a piston. Jack did not feel the blows at first. The big man’s poundings set off thunder flashes in his skull. And there was pain too, but it didn’t feel real. The piston punches stung like wasps, but they were causing much more damage than that. He knew that they must be, even if he did not feel very much. He decided that it might be time to fight back, but something was stopping him. He felt distracted, distant.
Her eyes were large. That was the most striking feature. He could not forget them. Wide, glistening and filled with passion. Beautiful and looking just right at him. Holding his stare for a good few seconds. Her performance in the church seemed totally directed towards him. Even when she wasn’t looking his way. Somehow, her monologue resonated within his soul. He was moved and disturbed all at once. Something inside him had stirred. She’d awakened a part of him that he’d forgotten about.
The actress. He did not know her name. He never would learn anything more about her. She was one of five performers from a dramatics group in Edinburgh. Three young men and two young women. They were dressed in late twentieth century clothing. Their individual performances told the fictional story of people who’d lived in the village two hundred years ago. She was the last of the five performers and her piece was the one that awoke Jack Sloane’s dormant soul.
The 67 young children at the front of the church were all from the village school. There were older children in the balcony seats. Some of them teenagers. They’d all attended the three hundred year old school. They were older, noisier and more boisterous versions of the small and startled youngsters at the front of the church. The primary school kids had sung their songs, performed their own carefully rehearsed pieces. Proud parents had applauded. The church elders had watched solemnly, morose and serious. Small smiles. Keeping things serene and dignified. Then came Jack Sloane’s time to sing. The last time he would ever sing in the village choir. He didn’t realise how hard it would be. Without Belinda in the audience he did not know where to look. He couldn’t look at the children in case he someone spotted Paul’s best friend. His strong voice went unheard. He barely even made a sound at all. His lips moved, but he mimed many of the words. By the time the last song was over, his mouth was dry. He had decided, even before opening his mouth, that this would be the last time he came to the village.
The tall strawberry blonde was standing over him. He was lying with dirt in his mouth on the ground. There was a familiar metallic taste in his mouth. Blood. His own blood. Some time had passed. The pain in his neck reminded him of what had happened.
“Sorry,” She said. “Let me help you up.”
He stared at her extended hand for a long five seconds before reaching up painfully. He winced as she gripped him tightly. Her strength surprised him.
“It’s not broken. Probably,” She commented, seeing him flex his shoulder. “Does it really hurt?”
“But it hurts like shit,” He grunted. He staggered to his feet, patting his pocket with his left hand as he stood, “Oh, fuck. Pamela. They took my organiser. Shit, it hurts.”
She was confused for a moment, but her wide mouth smiled on. Her eyes were bright and deep, but he didn’t want to look at them for too long. Her golden hair flew in the wind, but it somehow managed to stay out of her face. She was holding something in her hand. It was Pamela.
“Surprise!”
“Holy f…” he grimaced as he held back the curse, “…fruits. How the Hell did you get that?”
“They gave it to me,” she shrugged, “I can be very persuasive. Here, I believe this little device is yours.”
He noticed blood on her elegant fingertips as she handed the device to him.
“You’re hurt?” he frowned.
She cocked her head to one side. The wind in the alley tried to blow her skirt up, but she patted it down carefully. She smiled sadly and looked deeply into Jack Sloane’s eyes. She was shaking her head slowly.
She gave a quiet, sudden, hollow laugh. Just a half breath. Nothing more.
“Not me,” She whispered, “Not now. Never again.”
Pamela squeaked in Sloane’s hand. The sound she made sounded different. He shelved the thought. His eyes were drawn to the dark green dress and the long, sexy legs that were being revealed by the wind. They were long and smooth. Sexy. He looked away, quickly, after realising that he’d stared far too long.
“Thanks for… getting my organiser,” he said, “Aren’t you… ah…. Cold?”
“No,” she said, “Not really.”
She started to turn away. He took a step towards her. She stopped moving and looked back over her shoulder.
“I can’t,” she said.
“Can’t what?”
“Go for a coffee. Or a meal. Or a walk. Or shelter from the rain that’s coming. I can’t do any of those things – with you,” She hesitated, “I’m really sorry, Jack.”
She was walking away. Just like that. He wanted to stop her. He even stepped forward, briskly, and almost touched her shoulder. But she moved quickly and lightly. He moved through the faint afterglow of her Jasmine scent as he pursued her, but he stopped after a few paces. He thought of the actress. The eyes that he’d loved. The confused, fake emotions. He wanted to catch the strange woman in the emerald dress, but thinking of the actress halted him. Then she was out of the alley and round the corner and gone.
He exhaled loudly, tiredly. He watched the alley as if somehow she might reappear, but of course he knew that she would not. And he was right about that.
2195AD - Seattle.
The bus driver had explained that service G4 did not travel than here. Matt stepped off into the dull yellow light of the empty street. He turned back to wave a loose, uncertain arm towards the driver, but the door was already closing and the old man was looking forward. The cigar shaped public transport lifted a further half metre from the ground before speeding off with a low pitched, throbbing hum. Matt watched the vehicle lift into the cloudy sky. It quickly disappeared into the night. Matt slowly lowered his head. He spotted the small, black rimmed white street sign.
“Silverman Avenue,” he laughed quietly, “You’ve got to be fucking joking me! Christ, if dad was alive to see this!”
Moments later, he was still staring at the words high above him. But then there was an unnatural sound somewhere on his left. He turned instinctively towards the sound, then something struck him hard beneath his left ear. He dropped his red leather satchel in surprise and almost tripped against the high sidewalk kerb as he staggered away from the source of the blow.
The second punch didn’t hit Matt. He felt it coming and shifted his body weight to the right. He felt the air move as th
e fist came towards him. He moved his own arm to deflect it. Something between an outside block sweeping in from his shoulder and a rising block curling up in front of his face. His movement was less than graceful, and it was untidy. Sensei John would not have approved, he thought. But that didn’t matter now. His block struck hard against the attacker’s wrist, deflecting the blow. He snapped his own fist out in a swift, pivoting motion at the elbow. It was an automatic reaction, but an effective one.
The attacker was surprised. He’d made a mistake; thinking that his victim was a much older person. The apprehension made Matt’s follow up attack easier. The back of his fist hit below the addict’s drooling mouth. Matt had been aiming for his temple, but the feeling of hard jaw against his fist was satisfying. He struck again without pausing. A measured and powerful punch from his extended right arm – aimed squarely towards the greasy haired temple of the dark skinned figure. It missed, but his second didn’t. It caught his attacker to the left of his nose, just below the eye. A guttural, defeated, squawk was uttered. Matt knew it was over. The figure stepped backwards, his hands in the air. Still staggering, he grabbed his stealth cloak tight around his body and vanished from sight again. Matt casually touched a finger to his black plastic rimmed sunglasses, activating the thermal mode. He watched the shimmering red and orange blob retreat into the darkness. Within a few seconds the fleeing addict had faded into the background. Matt turned his sunglasses back off again. He looked back up at the street sign. He stared for a long time, breathing loudly as his body recovered. He read the street sign over and over about a dozen times. He touched his hand to his face and felt the inside of his cheek with his tongue. Nothing seemed to be broken.
The bus had left Matt two miles from where he wanted to be. But it was a very warm August evening and Matt didn’t mind walking the last distance to the spaceport. It was getting dark, but there was still a lot of scenery to enjoy. The famous Seattle space needle was just visible to the north. West, of course, lay Harbor Island and one of the few remaining spaceports in the world.
Matt Silverman smiled on one side of his face. He furrowed his brow as he walked into the Starport Bar. The wind tossed his rusty blonde hair one last time as he pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped through. The door closed behind him heavily, almost pushing him into the bar. He had to stop for a moment and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. And it was a few more seconds before he noticed the stars all round him. The walls of the bar twinkled with them.
“Cool,” Matt Silverman muttered almost to himself. And, once more, he felt that there was something familiar.
Suddenly, everything was trembling. The roof creaked and glasses tinkled at the bar. Overhead, a massive starliner was ascending towards space. Three miles of technology playing tricks on science and God to defeat gravity. The glasses behind the bartender rattled. Silverman met his eyes. The bartender’s eyes smiled. Matt wondered if the bartender smiled each time the glasses rattled – each time another ten thousand tons of technology flew by.
“The Starport bar,” Matt echoed, “That’s original, isn’t it?”
The barman frowned for a second, but then he realised the innocence behind the youngster’s words.
“More original than you think,” the bartender grinned back, “This place was here long before the spaceport. I think it’s always been here.”
“Southern Comfort and lemonade,” Matt stated, “This place was here before the spaceport?” he considered the absurdity of this for a moment, “Wild,” He decided, finally.
“Wild indeed,” said the barman. “Southern Comfort and lemonade coming right up.”
He poured the drink and Matt lit a cigarette.
“Aren’t you a little young to smoke?” the bartender said, “You can get cancer from those, you know.”
Matt shrugged. “Maybe. Where is everyone?” he gestured around the bar, “Is it always this quiet?”
“Early on, yes. Doesn’t kick off until about nine. Then the late shift knocks off and the place will be crowded out.”
“Late shift?” Matt queried. His drink had arrived and he turned the glass in his hands – clockwise twice and then anti clockwise one time. He stared at the glass, then brought it to his nostrils. He breathed in the friendly familiar odour he loved and he took the ghost of a sip.
The barman seemed to find Matt’s behaviour interesting. He stared at the glass in Matt’s hand.
“The freight guys. The brown uniform workers who make sure everything gets into the sky and stays in the sky. The workers. You know, the workers?”
“The workers,” Matt said, “I like that.”
“Someone has to work,” said the barman.
“Yes,” Matt , “Someone has to.”
The conversation died then, if it had ever lived at all. There wasn’t even a tumbleweed moment. The last statement drifted from Silverman’s lips and faded into the twinkly darkness of the bar. The bartender drifted backwards towards the glasses by the mirrored bar. Matt watched him go lazily, then his eyes met his own in the mirror’s reflection and he stared loathingly at his own much despised face. The bartender cleaned some glasses. He looked uncomfortable, Matt thought. He tried to think of something more to say to the man, but he couldn’t. He examined his drink and stared into the hazy amber nectar. The barman drifted away and busied himself cleaning glasses and making adjustments to the vaporizer.
The bar started to fill at ten minutes past nine. And within a few minutes Matt Silverman might have been one of the brown coats. But not an ordinary brown coat sitting in their twos and threes and fours. Someone lonely, strange, untrusted and unwanted. Someone who didn’t really belong where he was, like a foreman or even manager. Perhaps even the safety inspector or – worse still – the political officer. But he blended in because, in the dark bar, he was just as invisible as anyone else. He had a quiet method of being unseen that he’d perfected, without knowing, for many years.
The night came and the bar filled and he remained alone until he felt the light touch of a hand on his shoulder and the gentle breath of a somewhat strong smelling lily drift across his face. For a moment it felt delightful. But that quickly changed as the touch on his shoulder was a little too heavy - too insisting – and the scent of perfume became a thick invasion of his nostrils.
He left the bar with the woman like he was in a daze. Nobody seemed to notice that he had gone or that he’d been there to begin with. The barman had lost interest in him two minutes after he’d arrived and the others in the bar did not even realise he’d been there all along. They walked together, and he knew that she was a hooker even though he couldn’t believe how unattractive she could be and still manage to have any kind of clientele. But, of course, he was the client. She gripped his hand tighter and he could feel the age there. Somehow, more than anything else, that disgusted him the most. But he allowed her to lead him along, as if it was something that was happening to someone else.
He suddenly - terrifyingly - found himself trapped in a cheap hotel room with the hooker. The whole situation was absolutely intolerable. Five Southern Comforts were not enough to shield him from the situation and he could not even pretend that he intended to do anything with this carcass of a woman. He pulled a bundle of notes from his wallet – almost all he had left – and gave it to her. She seemed genuinely sad for him, like somehow she had done something wrong. She was apologetic. Sincerely and tearfully apologetic. That just made everything much worse. He felt sorry for her sadness, but he couldn’t muster too much compassion for her.
He left the building. He took a picture of the street sign with his glasses and wandered towards the bright glow in the distance which he knew must be the spaceport. It was maybe three or four miles away. The streets were quiet and lonely. He liked them that way.
A massive freighter slowly moved across the sky above. It must have been ten miles long – larger than the Spirit of the Future. Matt watched it take up the whole sky until, for ten minutes or more, it seemed th
at the whole sky was a massive metallic mass with a few blinking lights. The freighter lifted into the night sky with gentle throbs that Matt could feel deep in his bowels. Eventually it was gone from sight altogether, on its way to the asteroid belt or perhaps even further out. But it wasn't going as far out as the Spirit of the Future. Few ships did anymore.
The Spirit of the Future was a big ship. Three kilometres long and heavier than a large town. A dark and massive hulk floating motionless over the north of a lonely city. The loading bay on dock zero was open and ground vehicles were moving in and out of the big ship.
The bus from the spaceport terminal hadn’t been part of his fantasy, yet it had become a major part of the reality. The terminal itself wasn’t as he’d imagined either. Perhaps twenty years ago it would have been shinier, brighter, busier and more like the beginning of a voyage instead of the end of the line.
The spaceport looked empty and forgotten. Alive, but only just. This was an almost deserted exhibitless museum for an explosion of interest in space travel that had been forgotten long ago.
But the ship was big. Huge, actually.
And that, at least, was something.
The Spirit of the Future had been built in 2110 at the now derelict New Mexico spaceport near Albuquerque. Until 2140 the ship had been a deep space explorer with a crew of over a thousand. Now, almost 90 years later, she took tourists on budget cruises to the far reaches of the galaxy with a crew of two hundred and eighty seven.
Matt looked at the ship and, for the first time since arriving in Seattle, he felt excited about the trip. He realised that it didn’t matter that he was a hundred years too late for the great explorations. He realised that he didn’t care that he wasn’t going anywhere except round in a big long circle. None of it really mattered. Sure, the spaceport was practically vacant and the ship aged and dull, but none of this was unexpected. Time had to move on.
Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1) Page 12