Prisoner of Earthside: A Novella (STRYDER'S HORIZON Book 2) Read online

  Alice looked like she was going to deck him. I hesitated as I thought of how long she’d be put away for, but luckily I didn’t think too long and yanked her back.

  I said, “Piss off, kid.”

  “Was joking, dang. You Burnsiders still get PMS or what?” He backed up against the building he’d been loitering near. “Could’ve helped you, too.”

  Alice said some more offensive things. The teen laughed for a bit then started to take it personally.

  “You’re in love with a traitor. That’s why no one wants to help your greasy ass.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “Thom Crisp. They haven’t said nothing yet, but my dad says he’s a traitor, and they are keeping him here while the media plays him up as some hero. It’s all lies and bull shit. Colonial just wants us to think things are peachy and that the Red Empress will be defeated soon. Nobody can stop the Red Empress. She’ll come for Earthside soon enough.”

  I held Alice back with more than just a hand this time. “Kids these days,” I told her. “They’re all screwed up, it’s something in the drinking water. Let’s go.”

  Alice used some indistinct verbiage and the teen continued on as I dragged her down the street.

  “You’ll see. They sent him back to kill us all.”

  We were a block or two when Alice finally shrugged me off.

  “I’m fine!” She kept walking in the direction we were headed and didn’t go back to pummel the spoiled little brat, so I didn’t bother restraining her again.

  “People get suspicious when stuff like this happens. Everybody has a conspiracy theory about everything. It’s easier to believe the worst about some one than the best.” I was sounding like some schmaltzy sage for sure.

  “Thom wouldn’t. He was a piss ant drill-runner like you. He didn’t know jack about shit,” Alice said. “And he wanted to die. He would’ve let them kill him before he told them anything.” Her voice quaked and she brought her fingers to her mouth, blinked back tears and forged forward at a quicker pace. “They have to be keeping him somewhere important.”

  I tried to keep up with her, but I’d probably need to go collect Old Shepard from the border guards to do so. Then I realized there is only one place in Earthside that all us outsiders would think they’d keep someone important locked away, and that’s Templar’s Stairs. The pyramid structure sat near the center of Earthside, with a domed roof to let in light for an artificial rain forest. It was an asylum for visitors to Earthside (not Burnsiders). When celebrities or politicians came they were treated to first class accommodations and the true Earthside experience, which is to say they were blinded from the truth.

  Did it make sense to me that Alice’s Thom Crisp would be there?

  Not really.

  But some one who could help might be.

  By the time I reached the Templar’s Stairs Alice was arguing with another Colonial Officer at the gate.

  “My friend is in there!”

  “I apologize, miss. The Templar’s Stairs is closed to all unlisted visitors.”

  My stomach groaned with shame with the name I was about to use. I knew Alice would think less of me, but it was the only way we were going to get inside.

  “We’re here to service the Lord Gentry.”

  The officer smirked, then rolled his lips around his face and said, “I will have to dial up and confirm your appointment. Name?”

  “Kimberly Stryder.”

  “Thank you.”

  After a moment of the officer speaking in private he turned his ugly grin towards Alice and I. “The Lord Gentry would be most delighted to see you again, Miss Stryder. Please be careful, young ladies. He’s in a biting mood.”

  3. BITING TONGUE, BITING WORDS

  I had not made eye contact with Alice since I spoke Lord Gentry’s name. What good was it? The Lord Gentry was known for his philandering ways. I’d be hard pressed to come up with a believable story as to why he was willing to see me again.

  I wanted to explain to her I was quite a few years older then her and my generation was quite entranced by the early Gentry’s ways. He was a delicacy that we were told we should try. He jumped from planet to planet lining up droves of lovers. No one knew he was an asshole for years.

  “What is he going to make us do?” Alice asked, not making eye contact with me as the lift took us up the pyramid’s side.

  “We’re just going to talk with him. He’s the only person in this place that I figured would know if Thom Crisp is inside.”

  Alice shrugged. “I don’t want to do anything weird.”

  “We’re not going to do anything weird.”

  “I mean it, Kimmie.”

  The door to Lord Gentry’s lair opened.

  There was a shower of profanities, though they were not directed at us. Lord Gentry’s business was preaching, and this was a raw un-edited sermon he was practicing on two of his servants (or as he called them, secretaries).

  “Your guests,” a secretary said in a trampled voice.

  “Kimberly Stryder! And quite a beautiful companion. Greetings, please fabricate a chair of your comfort!” Lord Genry said.

  Of course the Templar Stair’s had the latest in luxury, two round cushions floated through the air and swept us up by the buttocks. The cushions quickly formed to suit our posture and mood.

  “I was hoping this would be a more relaxing encounter, but the chairs do not lie, you are here on business?”

  “Afraid so,” I said.

  “That’s unfortunate, Kimberly. I’ve missed you. You are often the answer in my prayers.”

  Alice rolled her eyes.

  I fought the urge to do likewise.

  “Well, perhaps after business is settled we can attend to your soul.” Lord Gentry offered us something to drink. We both turned him down. Gentry was infamous for running a tally of what one owed him for his hospitality. The personal cushions would not come cheaply.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “I thought I’d visit you and that you might know where we can meet with an old friend.”

  “I have many friends, so you came to the right man.”

  “Thom Crisp.” Alice blurted out the name before I could properly work my way towards a more subtle reveal.

  Gentry pursed his hands and tried to hide his true reaction. He looked to his left and he said, “I will be meeting with him in due time. He has been added to my prayers. His soul is truly tormented.”

  “She’s a friend of his,” I said. “Someone who can help him.”

  Gentry nodded. “Can you imagine the last four years of your life sucked away? It’s easy for one to think he would be grateful to be back. And it would be ignorant to believe his life would simply turn the page and continue where it had once been. In four years alone we’ve seen an assassination of a President, the incursion of the Red Empress on the frontier and lest we not forget the adoption of RiBiTech.”

  “Or fancy cushions,” Alice said.

  Gentry cleared his throat. “This is not the world brave Crisp left. I have been assured they are taking the utmost care to see that he is properly reintegrated as they bring him up to speed. You certainly wouldn’t want your friend tossed into the streets with no grasp on the idea that this is reality now.”

  “But he should have friends to help him, don’t you think?”

  Gentry shrugged like it wasn’t his decision. “Well you are quite the detective, Kimberly, you have come to the right place. As much as I can share with you is as much as I know. The Colonial officers have rented dear Crisp a room here in Templar’s Stairs.”

  “What floor?” Alice asked.

  From the look on Lord Gentry’s face, it appeared Alice was quite rude for asking. He looked at me as if I could control Alice’s outbursts. I must look like a saint or an elephant tranquilizer. But I assure you all, I am not either.

  “She was invited,” I added.

  “You put me in an embarrassing situation, Kimberly. For I must now admit I do not know.”
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br />   I got up to leave, to actually leave. But maybe it looked like a bluff to Lord Gentry.

  “Don’t play that hand with me, Kimberly Stryder. My prayers for you have been quite strong. It was only a matter of two years ago if you recall.”

  “Longer than that,” I said.

  “I’m not talking about our soiree,” he said. “I’m referring to your incident in the New Shetlands.”

  Alice hadn’t heard this story yet. I wasn’t too keen to share it.

  “New Shetlands?” I played dumb. “That was you?”

  “I am your guardian angel, my sweet.”

  He was right, in a perverse way. I’d never asked for the favor then and he made me regret asking for one now.

  “Tell you what,” Lord Gentry said, slapping his hands on his knees. “I will give dear Crisp a message that you two fine women came calling. If he wishes to see you, perhaps through the proper channels a meeting can be arranged.”

  There was more. Lord Gentry had stopped speaking but the way he leered was as if he could telepathically share the next stipulation to his favor.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  Lord Gentry purred.

  4. SPREES

  “Look out,” a familiar pubescent voice said. The teenager from earlier glared at us as we left Templar’s Stairs. He was riding an airbike, cutting sharp corners, taunting us. “Telling my father about you two.”

  “We’ll tell him for you,” Alice said taking a swing at him as he rode in too close.

  “Oooo…”

  I stopped Alice from taking a second swing.

  “Nobody is going to do you ugly bitches any favors. You look like roadkill, ha, Burnside’s finest I bet.”

  “Come on,” I said to Alice.

  We integrated back into the pedestrian traffic of Earthside.

  “He’s right you know,” I said.

  “He’s a little shit is what he is.”

  “No, there are plenty of snobs here. It might not be a bad idea to clean up a bit and see how many more people will talk to us.”

  “You mean, you need to get cleaned up for Lord Gentry,” Alice snickered. I didn’t bother responding to it.

  “Let’s just see if it gains us any ground. I should have some credits still. We can find a boutique and look fresh as daisies in a matter of minutes.”

  Alice shrugged. She was only willing to give it a try because she didn’t have any better ideas. And so, after rejecting a few storefronts because of the number of frills and puffs on the apparel in the window, we landed in Little Boutique’s House of Primp.

  “Sit,” the plastic looking woman said. “What styles should we try today? Is this just a bad hair day for you?”

  “Eat my shit,” Alice said.

  I laughed and was given one of those glares that is still somehow a smile.

  “Just a bad day,” I said.

  “Well, judging by your DNA, a Marilop is the style to go for you,” the woman told me. She looked over Alice and said, “Garbo.”

  “I’ll rip your damn head off, lady!”

  The modeling chair held Alice back, but it shook and there was probably some internal damage to the device that was going to make us look, younger, hipper, and prettier. All based on what would benefit our bone structure, skin complexion and eyes.

  “Sounds perfect,” I said.

  I laid my head back and waited for the program to run its affect. It was only a matter of minutes, but I felt massaged. My pores breathed free of original sin. There was a pinch at the eyebrows and in some other unmentionable places.

  And then a sigh roared from me that was embarrassing and revelatory all at the same time.

  I felt like a new woman.

  Alice and I left without saying much to the other. What we thought of our new look was confirmed by stares unlike any I’d ever received in Earthside. There were even verbal pleasantries to be exchanged.

  “When we can finally meet Thom, I don’t want you looking like that,” Alice said as we were smiled upon by a group of teenage boys.

  “Let’s see how our disguises pay off first.”

  “Do you think I’m pretty?” Alice asked me.

  “The braids aren’t my thing, but normally you’re a very attractive woman.” I could tell she was wondering if Thom Crisp would like it. So I finally had to ask, “How long were you two an item?”

  “I met Thom on Echostation. We were in classes together. Classmates actually. Paired because we would make the other better. And I was dumb enough not to believe that when I met him. We used to fight over every little thing. We’d have different opinions just because of the other. He outsmarted me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, one day he came up to me and said, ‘you won’t go to the Moonday dance with me.’ And I said, ‘Wanna bet?” She shook a smile from her face. “We were so damn cordial to each other that night.”

  “That’ll happen,” I said.

  “Well, of course after graduation we both signed up for KorCorps, thinking we’d be working together, only I landed my ass planet side in an office and Thom was shipped off to the moon for drilling. We stayed in contact, but not as much as we should have. I kept promising to come visit him.”

  “I didn’t know you worked in the offices.”

  “I did. I knew all about you, Kimberly Styder. Everyone talked about you. They kept trying to get you to come back to work for them, even after what…happened…”

  “Yeah, they sent somebody once a month for two or three years after the drilling was done here.”

  “They sent me one time,” Alice said. “You don’t remember.”

  I didn’t. I had been blind drunk, vicious and vengeful. Until Gregor.

  “That’s when I quit.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “No, it wasn’t you. It was the attack. When Thom went missing. I quit. I thought I could round up some mercenaries and take on the Red Empress myself.”

  My heart hit the ground and I almost tripped over it as I remembered.

  “You asked me.”

  Alice nodded. “What you said hurt, but I needed to hear it. You were the only one would let me believe he was dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “No. I couldn’t have waited 4 years for Thom to return. I would’ve died trying to get him back. I can’t imagine Thom coming back and me not being here for him. He needs me.”

  5. THE BIG DRIP

  Earthside is not all perfection. Deviants run wild in the manufactured shadows of the perfect human colony. Mankind still repeats the sins of the Garden of Eden. Even the noses that turned up against us when we still looked like savage Burnsiders were capable of the most amoral pleasures.

  Now we were fresh pieces of candy, and those noses didn’t see us as outward mirrors of their deviant souls, but rather corruptible flesh. People started to say things to us that would get your neck slit in Burnside. I found it pretty humorous, but Alice didn’t like it.

  She liked her makeover. More than once I caught her admiring her new look reflection. I felt Alice deserved it. She deserved to have her Thom Crisp. It would be nice to think a man could make everything right in the world. But the human race had seen a few thousand years of detailed records that was pretty substantial evidence that man was all that was wrong with this world.

  “I just want the two of you to watch,” a quiet clerk told us. He touched his lips and made a kissy-kiss face. “I’m an artist you know.”

  “I’m sure that you are.”

  “I get to go places to perform. I’ve been in every room in the Templar’s Stairs. Every. Room.”

  There the clerk had finally said something useful. Here I thought he was only going to be a guidepost for the more social atmospheres Earthside could offer.

  “Templar’s Stairs?” I said playing impressed. It would be impressive if being the toilet paper for the richest and most hypocritical visitors to Earthside was impressive. I could see the thought tur
ning Alice’s stomach. And all she’d met was Lord Gentry, who was certainly handsome in the traditional sense.

  “Yes, I know every room by heart.”

  “I’d love to go there.”

  The clerk tapped his lips again and looked Alice and I over.

  “You looking to make money?”

  “Just the experience. You know how hard it is to meet the people who can make it worth your while,” I said.

  The clerk puffed and nodded. “Maybe I can line something up for you next week, I got some regulars I could see if they…”

  “We’re only here tonight.”

  The clerk gasped, “Burnsiders?”

  I smiled.

  “Now that I know a very particular client who would just adore, but tonight? Hmm. That sounds mighty suspicious, young ladies.”

  “We came to Earthside for fun, not business.”

  The clerk thought again, this time he really worked his fingers on his mouth, like he needed to reprogram them for what he said next.

  “Tonight only,” I said.

  “Well that simply won’t do.”

  “Can I show you my talents?”

  The clerk blinked and nodded at a room behind him. “Go inside and I’ll be in in a minute.”

  Alice was a nervous wreck. She glared and paced. “Talents?”

  “Relax, take off your shirt.”

  “Damn it, Kimmie, I said no weird shit!”

  I smiled. “You have to trust me.”

  The door swung open and closed as the clerk slid through with a devious grin. “Hurry, I can’t be gone from my post long.”

  I showed him my talents.

  I’m sure deep down this young clerk had good intentions, a sweet heart and aspirations and hopes that no one should dash. I’m sure he is beloved by a set of parents who worked their hardest to give him a good life. And I’m sure that one day he’ll realize selling his body isn’t what is going to make him the happiest.

  But my talent has to ignore that. Otherwise I can’t do what I learned to do six years ago. Of course members of the Dessup Gang put up a better fight. They liked to bite and scratch. All this clerk did was squeal.