Chapter 1
Patrolling the tightly packed, overpopulated buildings in City Central was a young cop's beat. Meandering the miniscule alleyways, barely enough for two large people to pass side-by-side--that was my life. The streets were narrow and claustrophobic. I longed for the sprawled out valleys that filled my imagination.
Heated sounds of aggressive voices came from one of the upcoming alleyways. Andy and I started walking a little faster towards the commotion. He looked at me and grinned, “Sounds like a little action”. Just then the sharp pierce of a woman’s scream broke through the surrounding male voices. I broke into a run and turned the corner. A girl’s eyes met mine. Her face was drawn and white. Her whole body quivered.
The man twisting her arm behind her back looked happy as her face grimaced.
"That's what ya get!" one of the others said, his finger pointing right into her face.
The third one was the first to notice us coming. Soon the three turned to look at us, the looks on their faces melting into shock. They had matching jeans, black sneaker, and tight long sleeved shirts. The sleeves rolled up the same way like some sort of uniform.
“Damn, a cop!” one of them said.
Two of them bolted the opposite way down the alleyway, knocking a garbage can to the ground in their getaway. The one holding the girl seemed too shocked to know how to react. He continued holding the girl’s arms, a dumbfounded look on his face, and turned her towards me, as if she could be used as some sort of human shield. She screeched again, the turn obviously twisting her frail shoulders in an unnatural, painful way.
I pounced on the hapless abuser. He pushed the girl away seconds before I was on him. With wild eyes, he took a desperate punch in the general direction of my head. It was easy enough to dodge the amateurish attack and he went by me. I grabbed his arm by the wrist as he went by, twisted sharply and pushed his arm against his back. He let out a pained cry, similar to the one he squeezed out of the girl, and I grinned as I leaned on him, shoving his face against the alley wall.
Andy came around the corner. The other two thugs were now nothing more than shadows quickly disappearing around the next corner down the alleyway. "Aah, ain't worth it," he muttered as the two got away.
“Take it easy man!” the young man wailed.
I grit my teeth as I twisted his arm behind his back.
"What's going on!?” Andy barked.
"What's going on sleaze ball?” I asked. “What are you guys doing?”
“Man, it’s nothin’ man! Nothing! You guys don’t even have to get involved. I don’t want no trouble!”
“Nothing! “three of you sleaze balls ganging up on a skinny girl,” I said.
“Oh man, she’s nobody, don’t worry about it,” he said. I grabbed his shoulder and spun him around to face me. One short sharp shot to the stomach knocked the wind out of his lungs and he collapsed to his knees in front of me.
“That’s enough Jonz. I don't wanna waste my time here. He's right--she ain't worth it--just animals fighting in the zoo.” Andy said. He pulled me back and we both stood over the young man as he tried to right himself, regain his composure; but the shot to his midsection left him still doubled over.
I heard the young girl panting behind us. I turned to look at her. Her arms were pressed against the alley wall. She was about my age, but her lost-child expressions gave her the impression of nothing more than a babe in arms; fragile, unable to take care of herself—perfect fodder for street thugs.
“I think he’s had enough.” Andy judged. “Have you had enough punk? What are you doing out on the streets at this time? You know its past curfew.”
“Curfew’s not the problem here punk! Now tell me what’s going on here,” I cut in.
Andy sighed. I pulled Andy aside. “There were three of them. The other two took off like cowards. This scum was holding her arms while the others were yelling and hitting her.”
Andy shook his head and turned to the girl. “What are you doing out here?”
“I’m just trying to survive, just trying to make a living? I got a right to live, don’t I?”
“Show me your identity card?”
“I don’t have one.” Her long blond hair fell over her deep blue eyes. They were the colour of everyone else's, but they seemed to be a deeper blue. Her black dress looked expensive but worn and stained. It had seen better days.
Andy glared at her for a couple of seconds. He turned to me and whispered, “Can’t you see what this is? No identity card. She knows if she carries it on her, we’ll swipe the card and get a full hologram view of her file and all her record. It’s obvious. She’s just a whore. She’s dealing with her pimps--or customers she ripped off.”
“We don’t know that.” I said. “Besides, that’s not our problem. To me, three men attacking a defenceless woman, its clear cut, we should get involved.”
“It’s clear cut all right, customer or pimp; either way—who cares! We should get outta here. It's too close to the end of my shift.”
“No!”
“Fine, you want justice for this little whore! You already beat the guy. You wanta get some more?”
He turned to the guy still on his knees who was still trying to recover, and kicked him. His head banged into the garbage packed against the wall. He groaned again, sighing like a newborn unable to speak any language, then seeped back into the pile of garbage.
“We should do something,” I said.
“We’re not social workers,” Andy insisted.
"It's our job to serve and protect!"
"You been watching too many movies Jonz. You make me laugh sometime. You’re getting way too soft--even for you." Andy waved his hands in the air, almost stretching across the narrow alleyway.
"We should be more vigilant than ever," I insisted.
He rolled his eyes and looked up at the stars--as much as you could see from our cramped city, looking up through the dome.
"Not with this Exodus crap again! Ya gotta get with the program. Your head’s up your ass dreaming about old Earth. It's gone buddy!? We ain't gonna get all these degenerates cleaned out of the domed city before the Exodus. Vermin like this," he looked to the girl and her assailant, "they're not all getting cleaned up by us. We ain't supermen!"
"I'm just tired of all this--" I started, but Andy pulled me out of earshot of our bewildered listeners and said:
"This is our job, but be realistic. We're gonna have a harder time down there. We ain't going to a candy shop. You're getting way too gung ho about this political "new beginning" crap--don't believe everything you hear on that stupid screen."
He pointed up to the City Central screen high above us.
"The President would want us to prepare. You don't care about what a historic time you live in?! Over a hundred years in this friggin' dome! We need to--"
Before I could continue he pulled me a little farther away, looking around at the tightly packed high rises surrounding us, scanning the windows to see who could hear us.
"Just shut up! What, what are you thinking now?"
He must've known I wasn't listening to him anymore. The girl's sad eyes were all I could see.
"I know where I know her from."
"Good for you Jonz," he scowled as he looked at her. "I dunno--maybe we seen her before. Big deal. Am I supposed to recognize all the whores in the god-damned city!?"
"Last time we saw her, wasn't here in City Central."
"What?! A whore like that--where else?"
"In the outskirts."
"In the outskirts!? Wow--she don't look like a high-class whore--but whatever--maybe she lost a better paying gig."
"Naw, she was living there."
"Okay Jonz, you got me slightly curious. How did an outskirts dweller end up being a two-bit whore on our lovely beat full of the city's scum?"
"I don't know that Stoneman? I'm not stalking her. It was a domestic dispute--remember?--that arrogant SOB beating up his wife?--had that vase worth more than our annual salary raised in his hand when we walked in--you remember?"
"Oooh yeah--but I don't remember her." He scratched his chin.
"She's the daughter who was crying on the street corner when we showed up."
Andy looked at her again, examining her timid and grimy figure, stuck on the wrong side of town--then he shrugged his shoulders and looked back at me.
"Still, who gives a crap--a rich girl who screwed up her life."
"You mean a girl who had to leave an abusive home."
"Whatever--still don't give a crap. How do you survive this job?"
“No, we’re not social workers Stoneman, you're right."
She was still there with her back against the alley wall, hands out wide, like she needed the wall for support.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“I dunno,” she shrugged.
“Do you usually work around here?” I asked.
She looked long and hard in my eyes and then her look relaxed and she looked down at her feet. “Yes, I usually work here.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for you” I said.
She looked up at me for a second and then quickly down at her feet again.
"Get up," Andy said, waving his arm to the attacker on the ground. Strangely enough, he had his identity card with him. I swiped the card on my wristband and his holographic citizen’s file came up. ‘Page one of seventeen’ it said at the top.
"That's quite a list of felonies. A couple of outstanding charges. Looks like you've been a bad boy," I said.
"Don't tell me ya wanta waste your time with this small time punk Jonz?"
"Is that a rhetorical question Stoneman?"
"Great Jonz, just Great. You did hear me say it's almost the end of shift?"
Andy activated the luminescent restraint rings around the attacker's wrists, staring hard at him. The attacker cowered and his eyes squinted as he met Andy's glare.
"Happy now Jonz? Another hour wasted back at the precinct processing garbage."
"But don't you feel good about cleaning up the streets?"
"Yeah--feel fantastic," he said as he pulled on the attacker's arm. "Come on you! Don't slow me down. And you!" the girl cried out slightly as Andy turned towards her "Don't let me catch you here again!"
I looked at her still standing in the same spot against the dirty wall among the piles of garbage left in the alleyway from the countless residents that filled the high row buildings towering over both sides of the narrow alleyway. As we dragged her assailant away to the precinct, I thought I saw a slight smile of relief come to her face.
Andy muttered and complained the whole hour we processed that punk. For me it was worth it.
Back on the streets, we came to the checkpoint at the end of a long street. We showed our police credentials and the lazy-eyed senior officer let us pass, barely looking up at us from his comfortable little booth along the border of City Central. The lights of downtown were less erratic, more illuminating and useful than the dank streets of our beat. The wide roundabout of downtown, with the sensational Dome Tower at the center, was always jammed with people. Some areas of the city may have been forced to sleep at certain times, but the very center was always alive and vibrant. The affluent citizens from the outskirts needed a place to party, away from their homes; and unfairly near the City Central citizens who were forced to obey a restrictive curfew.
I walked out to the edge of the roundabout. Here the people flowed by us without interruption. I looked up and felt the claustrophobia drift from me as I soaked in the impressive view of the Tower and all the wideness of the roundabout. People were drifting in and out of the stairwells up from the transit system. Jostling and laughing. The noise continued unabated from the balconies of the bars and clubs that jutted out from the lower levels of the tower. Above this cluster of party establishments, the higher levels of the towers had a collection of giant advertisements selling everything from shoes to appliances, all glitzy images; some two dimensional, some three dimensional and jutting out over the traffic in the roundabout.
Up above the streets, in the middle of all the fancy advertisements, there was a giant telecommunications screen beaming down over the crowd. It was on City News. All the news stations were discussing the planned exodus back to Earth. This night was no exception. They were constantly replaying the President’s news conference from earlier in the week.
“Haven’t you heard that often enough?” Andy asked.
"What?! You're not interested in the Exodus now Stoneman?"
"Course I am, but don't need to hear that same crap over and over."
"The President is just trying to inform the people about the strides we made--how Earth is finally safe again. People need to know that the terrorists are defeated."
"Safe again--spoken like a real General's son Jonz. They're gonna send us soldiers and the City Central scum first. Do you think your dad and his buddies are gonna be cutting trees for the first settlements?"
"Yeah, that's right. He's going to go from top general on the space station to lumberjack down on Earth."
"He can help with the reconstruction--no?!"
"Quit laughing Stoneman--you're not funny. Show some respect for the soldiers that risked nuclear contamination over the last hundred years."
"I'm showing the ultimate respect. I'm gonna join'em soon. I'll stick by you too. Safest assignment is near a general's son."
"Sure, now that the contamination levels are under control."
"If they really are Jonz--if they really are."
"What?! Now you think they'd send us down and let us travel past the Earth dome to get contaminated and die?! Come on Stoneman, now you're pushing me too much."
“ Sorry for the reality check Jonz, but I don't believe everything they put up on that giant screen--spouted by our fearless leader." He looked around at the sights. "Why can't we spend our shift here? Be more tourist guides than anything. Easier than the scum we gotta deal with."
"That's for the senior guys Stoneman."
We made our way to the other side of downtown. A drunk woman stopped us and put her arms around Andy. She wanted her friend to take a picture of her with two strong policemen. We obliged; happy for the distraction.
The bright lights of downtown blinded us passing through the checkpoint to continue our shift on the other side of downtown, the other side of City Central. The noise of downtown quickly faded along with the lights, the jewel at the center of our domed city. The good-spirited shriek of a woman was the last loud sound we heard as we sank into the other side, right back into the heart of City Central and the curfew.
The continued ebb and flow of illegal activity was all around us. We only stopped for the more brazen, the more obvious outlaw night-dwellers. Through the intermittent light of the alleyway, loud intoxicated voices were bellowing; distracted, not paying attention to the police officers heading in their direction. The plaintive howls of tenants above could be heard, pleading for an elusive night’s sleep.
Andy picked up the pace, walking powerfully towards the commotion – eager, yet trying not to announce his arrival too easily. The doorman had just realized who was beside him when Andy pushed him aside.
Inside, our arrival caused the usual sudden halt of activity; but it was more pronounced, more shocked, in these more dangerous surroundings. The room was relatively large considering the City Central location. Enough room for a dozen people to sit comfortably. The bar at the back of the room had the usual array of glasses and bottles on display, distorting the soft glow of lights from the wall in back of them. This was the only light in the bar, so it left the patrons in a shadowy haze, stumbling around even before they became intoxicated. Andy and I entered, the aforementioned silence abruptly filling the room. Andy stood in the middle, wide stance, searching out a target. One particularly nervous character fidgeted in the corner; his eyes darting back and forth helplessly in the shadows. Andy sensed the weakness and pounced.
“Do you know what time curfew is?”
The man looked around, beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead. “Who, me?”
“Yeah, you!”
“T-twelve, twelve o’clock”
“That’s right, my friend – and what time is it now?”.
“One th-th-thirty.”
“Right again.” Andy looked around, in mock approval, like a schoolteacher happy with a bright primary school student. “So what is it that you don’t understand about the principle of curfew?”
Andy’s face leaned in towards his helpless foe. The man squirmed; sweat now drenching his face. The man’s face contorted as his mouth moved, twitching; searching for an explanation.
“You may as well leave him alone. He’s just having a drink, not bothering anyone,” said the bartender from behind. "If it's good enough for the golden citizens from the Outskirts partying downtown, why not us?"
Andy’s head turned towards the interloper. The bartender matched his gaze, unfazed, a pair of worn eyes, looking older than their years, losing their youthful blue, and fading to an experienced, yet cynical pale grey.
“I don’t think you should be sticking your nose in, buddy.”
“Let’s not make more of this than it is my friend,” the bartender said.
The bartender was making a drink, deftly using only his left hand, his right shirt sleeve rolled up neatly, not needed, considering the bartender had no right arm. Below his grey eyes, a deep scar slashed its way across his cheek, narrowly missing the left eye. Continuing to mix the drink, bottle clinking against the glass.
“I know what you guys are all about. So do most of the guys in this bar. So don’t get excited. We were all in the same situation a few short years ago.”
“Ex-cop?” I asked.
“Yeah, ex-cops, and we did the next level too.”
“Earth combat duty?” Andy added.
“Yeah, of course you know what I’m talking about, don’t you? We were in the same position—young, gung-ho, patriotic, idealistic – sound familiar?” The bartender let out a hoarse chuckle as he distributed the drink to an eager patron. “We went through the same steps as you guys. They always start the young military recruits in City Central street patrol. Combat training twice a week. Soon you’ll be going to your Earth combat boot camp. Am I right? Of course I am. We all know the routine here. We’re all brothers in arms. Every one of the guys you see here--” The bartender slowly, methodically pointed out each of the dozen men that were in the bar with him. “—each one of these guys knows what you’re going through, and more--where you’re headed.”
Until then, the bartender’s eyes were fixed solidly on Andy or me , now he diverted them to his bar for the first time. His tone grew deeper. I felt unsettled.
“I remember the shuttle down to Earth. Mind you, things have gotten better lads. We’ve expanded conquered land on Earth nowadays. You lads will have it easier than we did, I hope. But I remember how we all felt. It’s a noble fight, isn’t it lads? Anyway, it was so clear before it all started. I mean, damn, we need to liberate Earth from those goddamned terrorists. That’s clear isn’t it? But it all got murky at some point, at some point after the mission started.”
The bartender looked at me.
“When you get out of the Earth dome, it’s very unsettling. You’re not protected. I’d never been out of the dome before. Of course, you guys know that only a few have ever been out of the dome, at least, no one apart from the lucky soldiers making settlements on Earth. It’s weird not to have a dome over your head, a solid, impenetrable dome. The security, it's what we're used to, I guess. Born, raised in a dome so when you shuttle down to the Earth dome, it’s not a big deal. You still have that security, that solid, impenetrable dome. But we're different from all the civilians that shuttle down to Earth. They go down every day by the thousands, shuttles filled with people, just a daily routine, going to work in the farms, plants, and warehouses, but there’s a big difference between those thousands and us soldiers. They take underground tunnels from the dome to their daily workplace, to their farms or warehouses or plants. They always have protection from the overhead… the overhead…”
His voice stammered, trailed off, but then he got his strength back.
“The overhead bombs that you have no protection from outside of a dome. Sent by anonymous, faceless bastards from somewhere out there in that wasteland where we all came from. They’re in their element down there. They’ve survived the nuclear destruction they reaped on the world. Right boys, we’re 2184 now – right? I can't even remember. Of course it is. It’s going to be one hundred years next month that they’ve been surviving, living, thriving in that environment. One hundred years on Earth since they destroyed it for all decent human beings with their bloody nuclear attack.”
His anger grew.
“One hundred years. They prepared more domes and tunnels. Thank God we got it back from them. Thank God we got the Earth dome and its tunnels before the bombs razed the Earth, and all its cities--to the ground. Thank God for that—a battle won. Thank God for all the battles won against those monsters, but there are more to win, aren’t there lads?"
Grunts of approval and head nodding went on around the bar. Andy shuffled in his spot, looking at me but then straight to the ground when I looked back.
"You don’t know how it feels until you yourself are outside of the dome, feeling weak, vulnerable."
He raised his one arm to point straight at me.
"Yeah, you heard me. I’m not too macho to admit it, not anymore anyway. You’re vulnerable as hell when you leave that dome and you know what the worst part is? You don’t have a clue where they are, your enemy. I never saw one of them in my life, only heard stories from other Earth front soldiers--other poor bastards just trying to build that goddamn first settlement. Safe zone--my ass. You don’t know what the truth is and what macho talk is. Everyone wants to tell stories about how they came face-to-face, strangled one of those bastards with their bare hands. Everyone wants to tell those stories and they do. But how many are just stories, and how many stories are real? Maybe none. But I know what I know. I never saw one, not even from a distance. Look at what's left of me though.”
His one arm flicked at the neatly rolled sleeve where the other arm should be. His fingers rubbed the prominent scar stretching across his cheek.
“Look at what’s left of me. They leave their mark, namelessly, out of the sky. Our tracking systems could always tell when the missiles are launched. When you’re in the field, they call you, tell you it's coming--but it’s always too late. Who knows, maybe not always, maybe once in a while we hit one. But we don’t know out there. They’re mobile. I’ve seen one of their hovercrafts, or at least I’m pretty sure I did. Flying over one of the countless bomb craters out on the Earth surface. We’re driving them farther away, taking more territory, but the Earth won’t be safe until we’ve taken back every square inch and that includes underground too. Who knows what they have underground. They’re so dangerous. We’ll win though. It’s getting better. This generation is taking the Earth back.”
“Not without sacrifices from previous generations,” I added.
“No, not without sacrifices, that’s true, many greater than mine. I’m still here, parts of me anyway.”
A heavy silence fell on the room.
Andy looked at me and said: "let's go".
We walked out.