

One

Short Stories

Sollai Rhys

Copyright © Sollai Rhys 2010

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All characters in this publication are fictional and any

resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

front cover by Shona Nunan

photography by Kevan Halson

Copyright © Sollai Rhys

www.sollai.com

Stories

My name is not Fat-man

Mona

A Trip through space

John - a portrai

Man

wwwiii

The One

Murky tradings

Hey

Front liner

My name is not Fat Man

Dedicated to the Great Britain Pub

The wind gave way to a cold calmness in the night. His skin, hot from playing baby foot in the warm confines of the pub, rejoiced in the wide fresh air. He was in the beer garden, a brickwork ground giving way to short courtyard walls about nature strips; tall trees reaching, lumping some of the brick work with its roots, veins into the soil below.

He sipped at the pub's brew, rightfully named "Piss", then took a longer draft to get it over with.

The night looked infinite in its beauty, he described the stars in his head uncreatively, like diamonds, so finely cut....

He was drunk. His head floated dumbly around his thoughts. He congratulated himself on every sober act he made, like a step without a fall, a sentence with an ending and clear precise wording. Then he would strive for more limitations on his brain and less he'd care for. A drug for the now. It took him no special places, time wasn't infinite, he was just dumber and he cared less. He loved more openly and laughed too loudly. He was a man, a shark, his Mohawk aiming him to his delights like a bow's arrow.

"Bang!" He'd say when he went again inside to commune with his friends. "Bang!" and he'd be there like a magician reappearing like the best of them from some clever trick. "Bet you didn't even know I was gone!"

"Bet you I did"

"Oh?"

"Indeed, I missed you."

He went on a wander about the pub and met a man who's 21st it was. He was incredibly fat, bearded and hairy in an orange sort of way. His hands were like fat children's hands and to our most prominent, fit, strong, handsome hero, he was a waste of humanity. Fat boy talked like a nerd and was embarrassing to be about. This smart arse thought he was wonderful.

"Oh look, its my 21st!"

Yeah just look at you fatty, you're a waste.... When it all comes down, when society runs out of mod cons, and you're left with a fucking spent battery, where will you be? What'll keep you alive? Why not die now? You're a waste! A fuck! A waste of a fuck!

"Happy birthday to you."

Our prominent character looked down to his hands and glimpsed a half felt image of a spear in his grip. Some clever, simple device created to end life for food, feed him so that he might live another day to kill and kill again.

~~~

Mona

Dedicated to Aidan

Sunday drove by on the wheels of a hot pink Ford car belonging to some old-school value. The sunset was like long red cuts in the darkening sky. Wind hit her hair.

The fair and attractive Mona sat in the driver's seat alone, wishing she wasn't, while every man wished they had a woman like Mona until they actually had a woman like Mona.

The trees were uniform and attractively paced along the quick moving road.

Sea breeze had dried her whipping hair. She certainly had nice hair, though. Blond like an 80's rock star. Did I mention she was beautiful?

The car sounded meanly treated. It had an air of unkempt freedom but it suited her bizarre unchecked character.

Tom's house was about five minutes away and she hoped her tape would finish before she got there as stopping it mid song was not fun. Some upbeat guitar music played that made her wanna dance. Well, soon she could. She'd see Tom and grab him around his slightly sweaty, flannel collared neck, hang from him sultrily and dance like the sex goddess she was. She'd make him forget about his brow heavy wife and not complain about the seat being left up after him in the dunny. Why that annoyed people was beyond her. The world was a filthy place... She wasn't sure whether the seat being left up made a cleanliness difference or whether it was just inconvenience... Well, the world was often inconvenient too. Whatever. Mona liked happy things. She looked at positives as a rule and frowned upon rules. She liked Tom too. He had the 'Mona smile' though. They often made jokes about it. Mostly because he claimed that he smiled more when Mona was around. It was true too. Mona had convinced herself.

Tom made Mona forget things. He also made her remember things. She forgot that she had never loved anyone seriously enough to attempt a life with them and she remembered that perhaps a dedicated love was a possibility.

The car turned into the driveway, a long one. It didn't have a gate and the surface was stony hard dirt, flanked on either side by empty long dead grass fields. Summer heat.

She was make-believe and the man waiting for her, Tom, wasn't. He had quite a rough appeal. She liked it. He wasn't rich and liked beer too much to be. She felt like a slutty 80's chick with holey stockings, lustfully intruding in on his space and his life and his wife! She wasn't.

It was messed up. Tom's wife had been dead three years now, but the two of them, too afraid to commit to each other, sought the way around. They had a secret affair like they'd had before Tom's wife had died. It suited them. It was wrong and evil, but so was their mentality. They listened to rock at clubs and she wore hoop earrings and baggy men's motor bike jackets of the cheapest leather. She wore too much makeup like she'd done when they were young, and he got tattoos and fought when blokes talked to her. He also drank too much beer and had to do exercise to keep off a beer tummy.

He'd been working on his motorbike, a real hog. It was rough as guts, dusty and muddy under the guards, but it was his stallion and she was his woman and he was her man. And Tom was all man. His heavy arms, tattooed like a tribal warrior pulled her out of the open top of her modified machine; modified by himself with his old grinder to take off the roof. She clung to his neck, hovered there easily off the ground with one leg bent horizontal in her joyful surrender.

He said "Hey babe."

And she said "Tommy!"

Acadaca was going berzerker and a little too loud in the back, but its sound spread out in the openness of his property and couldn't wreck the communication which had ceased now anyway as they kissed grossly, slobbery. Monster passion.

He lay her half across the hot bonnet of her car. It was getting dark and she wondered whether they'd do it there. He kissed and groped and, before I write too much, this middle aged couple living an old dream found themselves exhausted in a twisted mess of linens in the stinking ruin of his room.

She was falling asleep upon his broad hairy chest, spent.

"You have to go love. Soon." He whispered.

"What time is it?"

"She'll be back soon."

"I wish your wife worked all night."

"Me too."

"Run away with me!"

"I owe her more than that Mona"

"I know... I understand." She crawled back, sliding off the bed, landing in her clothes... Maybe her clothes. What if they were his wife's? She felt a pang of guilt as she thought of his wife. She'd be coming up that drive soon. She'd make him dinner, wonder what he was hiding. Would she blame the Ford's tracks on her imagination or just bottle it up. What would she say to bike and tools not put away as Tom was usually so careful to do.

"I'm sorry Milly." Mona whispered. Was that her name? It was. Mona had never met Milly. She only knew her as the absent presence that kept the house clean in a way Tom couldn't possibly achieve. She'd seen the coffin lowered into the earth from afar. Watched Tom cry his heart out in the company of a loose string of friends and family who she'd never meet. Mona had also carefully forgotten that memory to keep the guilt, for Milly's respects. For Milly's respects, Tom could go on pretending Milly would come home and that he could continue disrespecting her with the Mona affair. His disrespecting affair was his love for her. The only time Milly was ever alive.

The pink Ford backed up, turned and drove quietly down the driveway, seeking the long voyage home. Taking the back roads Milly would never see Mona's car upon.

~~~

A trip through space

Dedicated to Nic Masman

The Mary Instant hummed within, its warp engine like a giant bee's nest. The Instant's interior was practical before comfortable. Passenger cells, numbering eight in total, were mostly used for storage despite the ship's huge cargo space, the predominance of the ship. The design was square corners, heavy manual doors, padded walls for turbulence. All fine enough for Nebular Harris's profession.

The exterior was a fat bunch of steely boxy bits, all vaguely trying to go the same direction, riddled with turrets and self-proclaiming bragging graffiti, mostly applied during the messy peaks of drunken parties. "The glory of NEBULAR'S ship surpasses even the fame of his cock!"

Nebular lounged lazily upon his golden throne of a captain's chair within the ship's small command deck. He waved his scepter, a long golden rod that flashed different colours when aimed at a computer or machine. He'd click and the computer would respond, displaying its function on the main console for him to analyze.

Currently, he watched the process of the warp that played in bright colours and patterns about the exterior of his ship. To this display, he sucked the rear end of the Spat Slug, the otherworldliness of the creature's hallucinogenic slime fully enveloping him within the hungry jaws of existence or "isness."

"Whatever!" He mumbled, intensely serene.

Point, _click_.

The announcement speaker console visuals fuzzed into focus before him. "Oooh!"

"Crew of the Mary Instant, this is your captain speaking! I want all of you in the mess hall in... immediately... whenever that is."

He watched "immediately" materialise into the now.

"I have a very important announcement." He pulled forth some sheets he'd written. He took a deep breath, giggled, then laughed like a nutter before reading.

"Inken gold like ruby rum fin,

Roll across the seas on winds borne by angel wing.

To fetch us a bounty full with gold like corn,

That may grow in our hands like a year's good spring."

He broke down into a giggling fit.

The crew had assembled in the mess. The crew of one confused The Body, who'd half expected to meet new recruits or someone he might have forgotten about. Stranger things had happened aboard this ship. He had been trying to pay attention to his captain, who had now altered his voice, if The Body wasn't mistaken, to sound like a parrot over the announcement speakers.

"Come along pirates, come along! CAW, CAW!"

Slightly confused, yet afraid to interrupt the captain's valuable concentration, The Body listened with a forcefulness that stilled his mind from its usual wandering.

_What parrot when?_ The Body asked himself, then pushed the thoughts away again, thinking on not thinking. He was, in fact, interacting with the strangeness of the captain's mood, a deeper, more subconscious intelligence seeing the captain's rambling for exactly what it was and sympathizing with it.

It seemed as though the parrot was somehow making fun of The Body's simplistic mind. "CAW, the story, the story!"

_Story? The captain's going to tell a story._ The Body did not find the prospect at all hard to believe and he wondered vaguely whether the stir in his stomach was excitement at the idea or whether in fact being in the food hall, as usual, gave him an appetite.

"Heart and word

Letter off thon name"

I wonder what he could mean?

"Sack an tear

The lungs of the sighing wind"

Ahhhh.....

"Who is of and off

And who is thank you for yon beer

And bread of sat yin behavior

And stale aroma"

No, maybe not...

"That waft so through the fair

Lake thy mind and drown thon think"

Oh dear, If I were but smarter.

"Wit is thy candy

As swift is my laugh

But hark a deer"

And see not trotter on the sweet leafy air.

The Body added, surprising himself by thinking, quick as usual to suppress it before he started confusing himself with unanswerable questions.

~~~

John - a portrait

Dedicated to Bottle Beach

Looking hard at a sea of blue, we notice taxi boats driving in loads of feminines!

We wait on shore loose as jazz. What'll we meet? Who will be ours on this sandy shore? Who, feather light, will grace our rooms, to halve our bills?

What evil will be done?

John waits alone on that sand's stretch of earth that greets wave after brushing and peaceful wave.

He writes in his book and reads his reading book. He lets the sun slowly burn his back, and if he regrets not buying sunscreen he'll only remind himself that he's young and that when he is old he'll change his philosophy to: "You only live once."

One day John will fall out of a window from the third floor and be revived in the ambulance truck. He'll change his philosophy of many changing philosophies and correct people with "You live a few times if your lucky..." It will never leave much of an impression upon anyone but that's in some future of his yet unexplored life... So yeah, it may be that that won't happen.

John watches legs. They are beautiful and golden in tan. He is deciding on whether he should risk looking higher... those legs are likely the most pristine and beautiful things he'd ever looked upon. They are tall and softly muscular... he can't describe them. They are beautiful and he's... He's blown away! To John, those legs are legs. Just legs, priceless and treasure chests in riches, ultimate value. They are beautiful because his values dictated they are so... Not because they are (though most people would say so) but just because.

John thinks like this. He accepts that he has values and without those values his truths would be a blank canvass of is-ness. However he is afraid of what his values would dictate when his view rises to take in her whole (hopefully) "pristine" figure.

But he is also a man of risk. "What a man." People would say at his funeral in many years to come, when he has more friends than the few acquaintances he now owes his insanity to.

"What a man!" So, this man of such emboldening words as "what" and such individualizing letter words as "a", makes the quantum leap and looks higher.

He isn't disappointed he realizes, when the foggy heat of what he could only later guess to be called lust has washed away enough to think clearly. Not that he is thinking clearly. He, in fact, has made a right fool out of himself. Mouth open in awe, he's got half way up off the sand and fallen straight back down. A little paralyzed.

She hasn't noticed of course. She has a man following her lead who has obviously stolen all her interest and replaced it with godly haughty awareness of the infinite men looking at her along the beach. A big lad with both their packs on him. He has the muscle to make it look easy. Obviously this man is her man, she's the boss. But she, she's John's woman. She doesn't know it yet, but she would know as and when she would be.

The legs owned a lean blond with a smile like confidence and loveliness and secret little jokes all mouthified. She's headed to the bar up the beach, trudging ungracefully through the soft white sand. It's a different lodging place to his! He has to move quick, change her course. He might not see her again if he left her to go now on her fool's course without him. He has to make an impression at the very least of leasts!

"No!" He yells.

Lazy young beachanites swivel heads to look at him, this man who had suddenly lost his cool in the heat, perhaps the only thing that keeps a man alive from this foreign land and its hot, hot sun.

"What no?" She asks. As in, "what do you mean by no?" He likes her use of English, like she'd smithed it slightly off-track for a bit of a laugh.

"Not that one. You must know that that's the family place? The family people go there!"

"The family people?"

"Come to the dark side!" he blurts out.

"What do you mean?" She looks worried by his apparent lunacy. How uncool he must seem, despite his lean, cared for body and fifties sunglasses, reminders (usually), of his rock star confidence.

"As the sun goes down, it is darkest here. You can see the stars and people come to light fires and dance about them nearly every night." A distant look, like a religiously impassioned man, half in the spirit world, crosses his face. He's forgotten that the term "dark side" actually comes from Star Wars. He'd put meaning to the phrase some joker had named that lightless hippy traveller's half of the beach. "We live by the moon and the calmness of the receding tide at night and shun away from the light where families go. We wait at day to recruit more likely souls to join our side. The side of darkness. The generator goes off by midnight and not only darkness surrounds us, but all silence as well, save shifting sands and whispering friends and lightly receding waters against the coral. We whisper because only a fool would disrespect the dark and the dark side."

She looks genuinely startled. The hulk of a man steps forward and opens his mouth. John interrupts him with an upraised finger. "Only woman's word is law. A man's can be disrespected without me having to kill the disrespectful, so respect this moment that I get to hear this woman's voice again!"

The hulk shifts his bags, bounces them higher up his back. "We are going to the next place. Stay away from us arse-hole."

The girl's head is tilted and John can see she wants the dark side secretly. And the dark side in all senses is the realm of John. For he rules the world of the unseen on this lonely little beach, the world of the mind. He's respected and unwanted as a friend, but needed among the other travellers as the figure of sureness. Like a lone pinnacle of pure light and pure shadow, he is half insurance that you can't get more insane and half insurance that you can always have more confidence. For that's John: Insanity and confidence all wrapped up in one body.

"I'll kill you man." John whispers as the couple walk away up the beach.

It's come to dusk and John can see her form up the beach emerging from the water. She's happy with her hulk man who plays predictable couple games with her. Teasing, poking, generally being annoying. We hope he sleeps light because he's a good man, not a great man, and John will only let great men offend him and get away with it alive. John thinks himself a great man. In truth, he's a horrid man who murders on a whim. John's cold blooded. There's a reptilian look to him. Not as though he's blocking off emotions, that's too obvious. He has none beyond his tunneled vision of false love for sexy bods. He's a blank canvas, wrapped in plastic, he's painted values upon the plastic, detached from his true empty self.

There's no one at dinner yet and he's reminded by the bizarre people of the world. Most people he's met about the beach will shower before dinner and get changed before their meal into something casual. Casual is a lie. They call pre-faded, ripped and paint splotched jeans casual, but John'd just call it pretentious and above all, expensive crap.

He had every wash out of the sea and had never changed so much as his undies, though he'd often go about without them.

He'd wear one pair of shorts or a sarong. He liked to go topless everywhere but owned a yellow Hawaiian shirt that was of very soft cotton. Tonight he wears this. He leaves it open so that his fit front shows between his flanking gold cotton. He wears his shorts and keeps his square fifties glasses in his front pocket. He drinks one beer and has a daydream of horses in a distant paddock. He thinks of dogs then and decides he likes them a lot. He takes a snack at the bar. He has pitta bread and badly wrought home made dips. They're a tad watery.

He sits out the front so that he can spy on the next bar along the beach and wait for the hulky bastard and the gorgeous woman.

A girl he'd met two nights earlier, one he'd also taken back to his bungalow, comes to make conversation. She's a good conversationalist and they disagreed on many things, like war, the jungle and trees, politics, love, the afterlife. John knows they don't disagree on any of those subjects. He knows it's just their characters that disagreed with each other. But both their characters are strong and stubborn in an argument or "conversation" as she likes to call them, and this is attractive to the both of them.

She plonks a cheap beer in front of him and he says his thanks, not to mention his hellos.

They drink for a while not talking. Pretending they are comfortable in the silence as they gaze off into a darkening horizon, the orange flaming ball of sun sinking into a grey blueness.

"Anything planned for tonight?" She asks. Her name's Sarine and she's French. Her accent's incredibly sexy, much like her olive tanned body. These things had also attracted John. But not any more. Lusting for her had ended soon after one night. She was annoying in the way that she was so anti-opinionated about the sunsets. Most people made gestures about them because they were beautiful. Well they believed that was what beautiful was... Once again, John's emotions were a cheap display, yet ones he thought necessary in human behavior, so he often made remarks about them to his fellow acquaintances. She, however did not follow this rule. She never had anything to say about them. Nor did she have anything to say when the tides receded and left rippling effects in the wet sand which reflected the sky oddly in the afternoon. This rule-breaking had lost John's love for her. Forever.

"The sun is beautiful today, is it not?" John asks her.

"Yes." Is all she says.

"But, what I really meant to ask you was, how beautiful?"

"Most." She replies.

"Ok. But that's not very descriptive."

"Oh? What should I say John?"

"The sunset is most gorgeous. I could live here forever. I wish time stopped at this hour. You don't get this back at home... The list goes on Sarine."

"Yes. I guess I could say that. But I don't want to."

"Why?"

"Because you said it all and therefore already know it."

"Yeah. But what else are we sposed to talk about?"

"How do you say...?" She stumbles through a few words in French and English. "Ah... we could talk about health!"

"Health?"

"Yes. Like, how are you today?"

"Oh... I see. I guess I am fine. You?"

"Yes, fine." She finishes her drink. "Thank you John, now I must be off. Good luck with the blond and mind that man." She points off down the beach at the other bar. The blond and the hulk are ordering.

"Thanks."

He watches a while. Notes that they are talking like a healthy pair of human beings. A much better conversation than what he had just experienced. Bloody Sarine! Bloody rude Europeans. He had come overseas seeing all other nations equal to his own. He now disliked the French for their arrogance, the English for their terrible drinking. He did like the Irish. He thought little of Americans. Oh yes, Germans he considered to be a bunch of cry babies while most other northern countries were very good company. But he liked the company of the locals best.

"Where are you from woman?" John asks from where he sits, looking coldly down the beach at the blond.

He gets to his feet, the sand's still warm in the now full darkness of night. He can hear the lapping waves. They sound repetitive, constant, only just inconstant in beat. They're soothing, meditative.

The restaurant's mostly outdoors, lit by flaming torches kept upright in the sand. There are no chairs and the tables are low. These are surrounded by pillows. People spread out like self-made Greek gods sipping at drinks and dipping into their food like they have all night to do so.

John tries to imagine these people back in their own countries. Likely sitting around their plain dining rooms or living rooms eating their overcooked two veg and steaks. "We are meant for better things," they think, like a background buzz in their minds. Altogether thinking that mankind was meant to live by a beach with cheap beer and fine food. They forget that they are slaved over by the local populace. John sees himself as no exception, save that he doesn't really see a difference between slaving and holidaying. He somewhere makes the decision that the beach is better according to modern values.

The Hulk of a man sees him first. He puts down his fork and makes a stoney face of his features. The girl turns, beautiful eyes of startling blue.

"My name's John." John says. "I made a fool of myself before. I'd like to apologize." He turns to the girl. "Your beauty had me thinking like a mad man."

The Hulk huffs once.

"I am Anna and this is Eric." She says. He certainly deserved a Viking name.

John shakes both their hands. John's the type of guy who does one of those handshakes where the web between thumb and forefinger doesn't meet the other person's. Eric is not one of those types of people, but John closes quick and wins his way.

Stupid Eric sees this as a weakness of character and smiles slightly, a secret smile that John's reptilian character grasps the meaning of.

The music of the family place plays annoyingly around them. Bob bloody Marley. John guesses it's their only CD.

"It's nice to meet you Eric and Anna." He begins formulating his plan. His plan to kill Eric the Viking.

"Likewise."

"Now I insist on buying you drinks enough to convince you into the darkness." He can't handle her eyes on him and realizes he has to move fast.

"Star Wars fan?" Eric asks.

"Aren't you? No, no wait, I bet you anything you are!" John falsifies a laugh.

"I guess I am, yes." Eric mutters.

"How did you guess that?" The girl.

So sweet a girl. He'd have to get her drunk. Very drunk. Lead him away! "Every western list of ten top movies includes at least one of the original trilogy films... if not all." John says "if not all" like its kind of scary and this makes Anna laugh.

There is an air of untrusting about Eric. Secretly he knows Anna isn't in love with him, for there was never very much passion outside of the bedroom. She's being too friendly with John. Eric feels slightly embarrassed.

"Really? That's odd. There are so many better movies." She comments.

"Perhaps. Yet I think Star Wars leaves good memories in every childhood." John had heard a guy say that exact thing whilst talking about the dark side of the beach not two nights back.

"True. But that doesn't make those films great movies. Though, I do love those films." Eric interrupts.

"Well, what would make a great movie Eric? Something serious, black and white and just for adults?" John turns to Anna now. "You see I think as a child, movies are least wasted. We forget in our older age the things we do or watch. I'm sure you'd probably forget the majority of the films you'd watch in a week. Whereas, who forgets great flicks like The Dark Crystal, Willow, and yes, Star Wars."

"I agree." Anna says. "We shouldn't get caught up in what society thinks acceptable because, as you say John, they're filtered in red and big named actors play drug addicts and child molesters."

"That's not what I mean!" Eric says thumping the table. "I think a good movie is a movie with a good plot, good photography, something we can relate to and that!"

"Well I don't know what "and that" entails, but I'd say Star Wars does all that firmly. Not to mention that they've made a Wikipedia site purely for Star Wars! Its called wookiepedia." He'll take Eric some where into the jungle... butcher him. "I can't think of another film that's achieved such a culture."

"Is it really that big?" Anna asks.

"Huge." John assures her with the accompaniment of a wink.

But how? John asks himself. Dreaming away from the table to an act of split skulls, cut brains and pissing blood. A machete flashing under the silvery moonlight, then smooth womanly forms, writhing in a film of sweat beneath his murderous, powerful self. Fucking someplace public, like on the table, here and now. He ignores a stirring beneath his garments, wondering at the paint that may have slipped through the plastic coating onto the canvas of his soul. Thank you woman.

"I have to show you something Eric. Later if you'd like.

~~~

MAN

Dedicated to Bowen Lyndal

I wake up after a shield rim that I think's cracked my cheek. It hurts a great deal. I guess I can forgive the bastard though, I did have a good poke about his guts.

I'm a knight, one who's earned his title on the field. I'm good at being a knight. Now that I think on it, I'm good at court and I HAD thought I was good on the battlefield, yet somehow I managed to let this one go by around me, oblivious to it all. We'd lost the fight, I'd had a good rest, and hopefully I'd make it home now without dying from one infliction or another.

So now, recovered and thinking I'd had enough at looking at a rain heavy sky, I roll over and begin to drag my aching body across the dank, bloody ground, trying to keep out of sight. It's cold, and sweat and blood chills me. My hands come into contact with a body, drenched with blood, next to him are more bodies so I pull my way up and over it, pausing momentarily to look into a face stilled with pain deep in his expression. His innards have spilt all about him and I slip on them as I roll over his body. His sword lies nearby, chipped to hell. I imagine he had done some damage before he'd met his end. I pat him on the shoulder, there's a good soldier.

My beard is caked with dried blood, my hair, unbound, is in knots and lank hanging clusters, dried with more blood, more sweat, freezing in the winter air. This is why I usually cut it, I remember. Court had brought out my vanity, curse it for its love of locks.

A wounded lad screams in the distance. He's woken to his wounds and knows that soon he'll die. He is calling the names of people he knows, probably from his squad. He wants help. I'd help, but I have the feeling we just lost, that's why I'm crawling in the mud, not running around shouting my victory or poking about the ruined men for coppers or a better hauberg. I need my horse. I have to get out of here.

I can see Farfetch not so far from the battlefield, nibbling at some scrub, waiting for me to get to my feet and come to her.

There's someone coming toward ME though. I can hear his feet squelching in the mud. I lie still, play dead. A sturdy sword lies not so far away, long, straight and simple. I visualize my plan: if I roll at the right time, I could grab it, swing it up and cop who ever it is that comes, square in the face. I'd wedge it so far into the fucker, his scalp would split right in half. I could do that, I reckon.

He comes, but I can hear he has sped to a jog, his chain mail jingling to his movement. "Play dead will ya!" He grunts between breaths. I perform my roll, take up the sword, thanking the earth mother I am still unhit, swing at thin air and see him plunge his spear into another man who screams loudly.

Shit.

The bastard looks startled to see me rise up from the dead. He hauls on the spear to free it, but the dying man screams anew at that and holds tight to the shaft still buried in him. One, two steps and on the third I bring the sword down on my helpless opponent, cleaving open his face and chest. A very satisfying sound, that parting of muscle and bone.

"Finish me." I can only agree with my dying saviour. I'd ask the same thing if a spear pinned me to the cold earth like that. My new blade falls with a heavy clump as it pierces his heart. This is a good sword. It has a good weight and balance. I'd think up a name for it soon. Not like a baby who'd grow into a name, a sword is an instrument that needs to earn its namesake. It's certainly coming close to doing so already today, we'd see what characteristic it truly favored soon, I am sure. I feel lucky, it is lucky, and maybe I'll put lucky in the name. Hmmmm.

I turn about at the cry of others in the distance, I feel an arrow glance off my helmet. I run to the horse, leap into the saddle and turn her about quick smart, aiming her in a charge right down the sights of my attackers, all four of them. A second arrow slices the edge of my neck and catches in my chain hood. There is a brief cheer from my opponents until they realize it is only a skin deep wounding, no major arteries cut or wind pipes severed. Bastards, I'd teach 'em what it meant to loose an arrow at Sir Roy Broken Spears!

The first one gains no luck as he swings his sword into my parry. In turn, I swing hard at his head, splitting and cutting deep his unhelmed skull. I leap from my horse, my battle rage renewed. I charge into the next man, catching his first strike on my arm. I'm mailed, but I know he'd cracked my bone. With agony in my lungs I scream and ram, the crossguard of my sword burying deep into his eye socket, a sickening sound, like pulling your leg from deep mud. I run my blade along his neck, down and back up to parry a spear thrust, I punch hard with my broken arm, crying with pain and the next pulsing bolt of rage. The blade rings off this man's helmet as he goes down. He is merely stunned. I leave him and take on the last fucker, trusting in my reflexes that check his first swipe at the hilt, ruining his fingers. I kick him to the ground. He grabs, with what he can still use, at my sword as I push it into his chest with my own body weight. His screams come like hell. I spin and leap, swordless to the stunned one, by this time recovering. I take to his throat, pulling him to the ground, wrestling till I am atop, pushing back a screaming face and bending down, I spread my mouth wide to bare my teeth over his jugular, to clamp down on it, till fresh hot blood oozes around my tongue, wetting my parched lips. Then I pull at it swift and sudden, tearing it wide, blood pissing up to repaint my painted face.

Time seems to slow down, there is a nice quiet suddenly about. The crows peck and squawk already, and men still groan and complain about their deaths to come, but I find a grey peace. I push myself off him. His children and wife would not see him again, nor the wives of any of the men who sprawled about me, or their children. But my wife would see me and for that it was worth it. That's four less we'd have to face somewhere else. I am a soldier, this is my job, killing and dying for King and Country. Knowing this brings me my peace, the only kind of peace that can be found in a place like this.

I can hear horses this time. I'd show them what a real horse was made of. I slip back into Farfetch's saddle, ignoring the pain in my arm. It is just cracked, no bone setter is needed, just a bit of grin and bearing till I get home. My horse is fresher than theirs. She'd rested an hour or so now, maybe more. I never tended to use her much in combat anyway. I am new to the saddle compared to born knights. I often fell off. In reality I am just a lucky rank and file man, my horse is more of a companion and a quick retreat, as she would be used for now. I spring away from the battlefield and their pursuit only lasts a minute or two. I guess I'd made up for my sleeping. I'd killed enough today. How many? Who cared?

The way home starts as nothing unusual. I patch up my neck wound and make a sling for my arm. I get some water into me and eat some dried fruits from my saddlebag. That night, I make camp in a barn away from a householder's family, a good idea as they have a mighty pretty young daughter and my adrenaline is taking its time to lax. The householder presents me with a half-loaf of bread and some ale. His name is Tod, a good farmers name. He makes an honest living, too. He is never shy about paying his taxes, I am informed. One day, he hopes to see his son marry Tom Thomson's daughter, but that is a year or two yet and he is happy to have his son as his own a bit longer. His son wants to march for his king. I said it was a good idea, nothing could make a man prouder than giving blood for king and country and the good men like Tod who worked it. Yes, I'd fight again. Not for a week or two I hoped, my arm needed SOME healing, but I'd certainly be sent back out. I'd be wasted talent otherwise. Tod nods sagely as I explain these facts.

By morning, I am feverish and my wounds, infected. Tod has slapped some healing herbs behind fresh new bandages, but I doubt they will do all that much, save for having me smell like a salad. I laugh at that as I get a whiff of it, climbing wearily into the saddle.

The road ponders on through the countryside of scrappy bush and farmland, cattle mostly. I am boiling hot with fever and sweating like hell, though it is windy and cold. I have to get back home, to real healers. I find myself slumping in my saddle and feel ashamed to be seen so weak. But I can't help it. I really have become quite tired.

It occurs to me I am dying. Many soldiers die this way, it is honorable. You die from your wounds but you still win the fight! I can't ask for anything more... Save to see my wife again. I am only twenty or something. I have no children to carry on my name. I haven't carried out my duties as a man yet! Who among my blood would replace Roy to fight for his king in future generations? No one! I'm gonna die here, on the road, a sack of potatoes on horseback. Sonless and daughterless. Bugger.

Lucky for me, or not, I don't die. I fell from my horse at some point and now she's likely pulling a plow in a field someplace. I lie on the road. My arm hurts a lot and my neck throbs, infected. It is really annoying. The pain is unforgiving. I want to get up, but I know it won't let me. I want to report to my Lady! I want a good meal. I want to see my woman, sit at the ale house with the lads and drink till I drop...

"He's handsome!" The female says, lying on my left flank. She affectionately pats my head. "A warrior. Would you look at his strength." Her thigh climbs up the side of my body, slightly lifting my unbelted tunic to expose some flesh.

"He hasn't got a very full beard yet, I think he is young." The man thing on the other side of me points out as he runs one long finger along my mustache. His other hand also dabbles in my hair.

"Such beautiful long hair he has." The female says, her voice a pondering stream of silk, her touch, suddenly on my hand, has my breath so instantly caught in my throat it hurts. I feel so intimately intimidated, yet cannot fight it for the pure undeniable love of these touches.

"He IS muscular!" The man thing says proudly, running an elegant hand over my chest then down, down, down to my lower stomach where he gently pushes against my muscles.

"Open your mouth." She demands huskily, "I want to see whether I might find your soul in there." I'd not known these creatures till I'd woken up only a minute or two ago, yet I obey.

"Big canines." The man thing exclaims, and moves closer against me to peer at them, while his hand pulls away the skin of my cheek. He looks at them so intently, his eyelids folding back from startling blue, blue eyes like two bright pools of inquisitive ocean. "A warrior's teeth."

"Sharp." She states as she runs her fingers along them. "I'm impressed." And she sounds genuine. I feel so admired and loved.

I stretch my arms out past them, and to no surprise at all, they burrow into my embrace. He lays his head on my shoulder to lightly rub the tip of his nose across my earlobe, back and forth, back and forth. I lay my hand on his hip, so lean.

She lets me wrap a hand around and underneath her. She weaves into my embrace and rests herself on an elbow so femininely it shocks me not at all to feel a stirring in my loins. She looks down into my eyes and holds them in her depths so entirely I feel nothing else but her isness and her want. A want she reveals so readily and truthfully it frightens me.

He brushes his nose up over my face so lightly it only tickles the downy hairs like a breeze. But his mouth does otherwise, it catches, his teeth snagged onto my beard, a light tug of a bite.

Her hand startles me away from the man thing's attention as she lays it across the flesh of my stomach. I am hers again. She leans down and kisses so silently the man, ever looking at me. My eyes are caught on the soft meeting between them. I see a beautiful light that glimmers upon the edge of the dry and wet of their lips, meeting like the sea and the land. Her hand trickles and skips up to my chest where it rests firmly again. The man thing's hand does likewise and lands on top of hers, my shirt is in rolls up under my arms.

He leans down to kiss my hair, while she exposes her body from beneath a simple gown that slips off her with the same slow, graceful speed that she spurs her flesh to meet with mine.

"Who are you?" I ask.

"You have a rugged voice!" The woman exclaims, more than a hint of admiration there. Her body is golden, like no artwork could describe. Its shape so lovely in the world around me. Her wings catch the light in a whirl of black and orange as they shiver with sexual tension dying to be released. "What animal is he?" She asks the man thing on a breath. Her breasts are like ripe fruit, her hips round and her waist small. She is woman as no woman could ever be. And her flesh is so soft!

"Something powerful." He observes and his top has disappeared. His body is beautiful too. I can appreciate that. I am not queer! But I cannot deny his beauty. It is as if stating water is sand to think otherwise. His own stomach is long and bell shaped, his chest small but strong, his wings longer and leaner than hers, like leaves ,and are coloured as though. I am not queer.

"Like a lion?" she asked.

"Or a wolf?"

"A bear?"

"A buck?"

"A boar?"

"A falcon or an eagle?"

"A kangaroo!"

"A horse."

"An elephant."

"Tiger?"

"Dingo."

They were gone. Walked away as if into a fog, consumed by my awakening. The bush is about me. Cold and grey. The thumping of some animal, probably a roo, womping away somewhere in the scrub. I am thirsty and my arm aches. My neck feels infected, but not as if I'll die. Well there is no relief then. HA.

I climb to my feet, aching. My sword is not missing, nor my mail. But I am naked and all my clothes are gone. Fucking fairies. I will walk away under steel alone and chafe and blister and be pinched to hell beneath it, right down to my cock!

SO? What am I? What animal is mine? I guess they talked about spirit animals. Most men carried their animal tattooed onto their back. I'd never been given one or found my characteristics in any.

Who cares. I want home.

And that's what I find in the waning morning of the third or fourth day. A cold shell of a home. Its grey stone walls hold the funeral pyre, no doubt to my woman, whose legs emerge from the door, roasted and half eaten by the carrion beasts. Amon, the death god, hops about the village, honoured with yet another feast!

Time is in a whirl. A whirl that spins faster and faster, like I am standing still but the world drags against me. A boulder in a stream. I can't feel much and know I should be worried and sad. I can't even feel my wounds with much emotional content. My wife lies dead. She'd have been raped. She was beautiful. She likely would have put up a fight, but against soldiers with a likely practice for the savaging of innocence? She wasn't a big girl. She was lean like a willow. Beautiful, I guess. I was satisfied with her. What man could ask for more than that. She was ever afraid I'd not return from my work, however. But I had always thought that that was what kept her rapists and murderers from knocking on the door. She had been so beautiful...

It is cold suddenly. I find my self where I'd left it. But where was that? Tears fall and fall again. I can't stop my bellows of echoing woe through the emptiness of the town. Or the graveyard it now was. I'm too young for the cruelties of war. I should have been a farmer. Maybe in the fields I would have seen them coming and had time to run to Sherly wood with the woman. But for king and country I...

A true warrior is a man aware of his own presence. He draws a circle about himself and calls it his world. He expands his circle about his enemies and in it those he calls enemies die. In his world, his enemy is all and all that must not be. The warrior is a time bomb, for his own world he must destroy.

First, my body will heal. Then I'll make a great many stakes on which I will skewer and let rot the severed heads of my enemy. I'll wear the skin of their leaders like fine silk when I go to make more of my revenge. I'll butcher with my fine new sword. I've named it Lucky. Plain and simple, for it is as lucky as any sword could be for its purpose. It will face all the enemies of the world and come through to win the day with me behind it. Its edge may be little better than a bludgeoning stick by the end, but it will be a happy bludgeon still. Oh my Lucky, my lucky sword. This truly is your day. I give you my arm in return for your edge.

"Happy work", I call it as I take to the collecting of my stakes. They are long, a man and a half tall. I sharpen them with a hand axe. They are pine.

My arm is healed enough now. It's been a week. The labour is putting body strength back together. I think I will let it take a shield or an axe to accompany my sword. My cheek is taking longer to heal and a few teeth have fallen out. My neck has healed up finely though, I think it may scar. I have so many. I've heard it's character building. I personally think they're just good to show off to lassies when you're drunk. I am drunk a lot, I find, and yesterday I took the day off to nurse my head. The faeries came back that day to see how I was and to return my clothes. They still had no animal for me to call my own. Again, the female vanished into the fogs of time before I was truly granted her body. Game-playing bitch.

I went to an apocathary in a town to buy some quick poisons. I mixed them with oil thickly, and poured it into the scabbard of my sword. I had had to buy a new scabbard for my new sword, as the old one was an inch too short and tapered to a point quicker than the new sword required. I had it tailor-made with a row of heads on spikes fashioned into the leather.

I spent a night in a tavern where I met Robert the Insane.

"Hail, you lord of war." He sat by me. "Is it blood you call for?" He looked me deep in the eye, one, then the next. "Or is it something more?"

"Rhyme away crazy man."

"Door whore."

"Yes?"

"Gore tore."

"They rhyme."

"Come, all ye lords of war and taste bitter Luck. Bitter sweet with a poison's treat. A nail driven deep into thy chest, pushed and pressed by the war gods best."

"I'll wear blood like a second skin."

"You'll be a cracked smelly thing. A sun-dried turd, but with the smell of rot!"

"Like a dried rose, pissed on... I care not."

"So revenge is your game? In whose name? For who and for what? The fallen door, of the house to the torn at whore, the carrion's store. For the souls, small and big, I can see the running of great herds of hearts skewered that follow your footsteps. Blood-red, the rosy things, sprouting from within like a growth, your sword protrudes."

"Well put." I admit. "You mean my wife? Don't call her a whore. She wasn't and is not."

"I rhymed." He confessed his nature and made no excuse for it. I admired that.

"True, but the memory of it insults me ever more as we think on it. I'm not going to kill you, but should there be anything in between? Should I crack your nose flat? Would that do me any justice? No, you speak words and I kill... We cannot confront, for you don't mean to insult me and I don't mean to kill you."

"But If I accidently insult you, does that not mean you may accidently kill me."

"My skill at killing is better than yours at speaking."

"What have these men done that deserves your killing if all they did was their job."

"They have done their job and for that I will kill them as my job dictates."

"There are many."

"That doesn't matter."

"You'll win what you can, but not all."

"I will win over all."

"And I will record all and tell it."

"This is a good thing. I would be remembered for my deeds."

"Then that is my work. Let us do it and never fail."

The next day, we went to work on the first chapter of my story or the first verse to whatever Robert the Insane would write or sing about me.

I know the keep well. I approach it at night. It's a dark, old stocky structure. It's squat but sturdy. There seems nothing strange about it from this side, but along the road to it there are the bodies of its previous owners, my friends, impaled on tall pikes.

I squat in a muddy paddock, slowly sinking into it up to my ankles, just a short-wall away. I watch silently and keep still to note the movements of the guards. They're posted and hardly talk. I have decided that these men on the walls are the first I must be rid of. They are yeomen.

I hop the wall and the sheep bleet and begin to run. Picking up my ladder, I use it to herd them towards the fort. I myself look like a sheep in their skins. In the dark, they must not see me or they'll riddle my shield with their arrows.

So I go at the walls like a frightened sheep.

"Must be a wolf, or something, out there." A guard says as he leans out over the wall to spot a target for his bow.

The end of my ladder rises quickly and belts him in the face. He falls back over the other side.

"We're under attack!"

I never knew I could climb a ladder so fast. All the same, a rock glances off my helm. I can not help but laugh.

There's a sword point waiting for me at the top, but I hurl my hand axe at him and he backs off.

I'm on the walls now and an arrow rams its head straight through my shield and stops there. Another hits it and another. I'm in hysterics. The lad with the sword, and a lad he certainly is, comes at me. I cut off his leg and let him die by my poison. Another arrow. My sword flies spinning when I throw it at an archer, the hilt cops him in the face. I re-hurl my hand axe and take another.

A man comes at me with a sword and I let him hit my helm that rings and dents, but my shield rim finds his face. I then rush another archer and put my dagger into his fleeing back. I throw this as well and leave it in a man.

I'm fighting a swordsman now with shield and arrow. My arrow darts about his sword and scratches his face now and then, not doing much until I puncture his eye and boot him from the wall.

I've found my own sword again. I re-poison it and fight some more. More and more. I don't feel quite fit enough, but I'm so lucky with my sword. I don't even feel like I have to do much. I just laugh and sometimes cry. I even get mad sometimes, like the men I kill have done me a great wrong... But I can't remember what that was. Am I not a soldier? I have no better cause to kill an enemy than that.

The fairies fly about watching. They cheer my name. "Roy Broken Spears fights like a demon!"

I'm removing a head. Men are trying to fence me into a corner with long pikes. My shield is a ruined thing, so I let my left carry the head for a weapon. I spin it by the hair, round and round. The head's bleeding gets in the eyes of an opponent, and I break his knee with my blade.

I charge the wall of men, roll across the ground beneath and under their guards, dart in the blade, push at a man, scatter them, head butt, trip, check, strike. I flick poison at a man's eyes from my removed scabbard. I crack a mans bollacks, knee his face. Slit a throat, break an arm, crush a nose. I cleave and butcher. I'm washing myself with lovely blood. It's soaked me and has made my hilt slippery.

The fairies descend from their flying and cheering. They land among many dead men. In fact, we three are all that lives, save the horses in the stables. I go about collecting heads.

"You have no animal spirit, Roy." The female says with a shake of her head and I stop my work to look at her. She eyes me lovingly. "Only man is capable of such massacre." She comes and kisses me. "You are all man, down to your core, you are humanity."

~~~

WWWIIII (The Journey)

Some lonely music in his fuzzy background plays solemnly and he wonders vaguely whether the singer is a lassie or a lad. The guitar in the song shifts his thoughts and, in a way, moulds his artwork. He smiles. The humour - his art work being moulded by another artist and sold for so much money (one day at least). He has a gene that likes to get away with cheeky little things. Even if being inspired by another artist isn't really that big a deal.

He finishes off his work for the day with a "I've had more than enough" and looks at the clock. It's been 10 minutes since he began and he's done about as much quality as 10 minutes could achieve. He gets a little angry at himself.

"Why can't I be an inspired artist?"

He thinks of his artistic friends, begins a course of jealousy over their ability, at long hard working hours, then reminds himself that he works differently to them. He's easily distracted for one, he hates finishing things for a second and he hates anything that relates to work... and, he notes with a terrible pang of guilt, that he secretly, almost secret to himself, thinks of his art as work.

It is work of course. Just because someone (not him) finds creativity an easy thing, as easy as walking even, doesn't mean it isn't work. If a farmer found plowing a field not only easy, but incredibly rewarding... it's still work.

He puts the kettle on. Puts the TV on. Turns the radio off (naturally) and then turns the TV off because it's the middle of the day and (naturally), there's nothing on.

By god he's alone. So alone. It wasn't always this hard. But that's because it got worse (duh). Motivation got worse. Harder. Eventually, on the rare days it was convenient to do something with friends, he'd usually ring up at the last minute and cancel. He'd gotten into a downer's spiral. He wasn't good socially. He craved attention in public, but didn't know how to get it and besides he hated that part about himself, so instead became introverted and secretly blamed everyone else for not being part of his life, his incredible life. He was an incredible person! Really he was... Now who was it that had told him that? Oh shit, his parents!

"Bloody hell. I gotta get a life!"

Some days, it got too hard to bear and he'd end up hurting himself in a mindless desperate rage. He'd kinda wake up to his stupidity alone, pulling viciously at his hair so that blood would begin to bleed on his scalp. He never felt any relief from it. It was just a way to take a break from coping.

He also had a problem with sleep. He'd prefer sitting at his desk in front of his computer rearranging his limited music selection into multiple playlists. He'd prefer to live out the horrors of one day than go to sleep and wake to face another.

When at last he did go to bed at some wee hour of the morning, he'd sleep and sleep and sleep. He was unfit. He was getting chubby around the belt from too much pasta and sitting at the desktop.

It was time he did something good with his life, though he wasn't sure what. He'd think about it.

"I could think about it today!" He told himself as he looked at the clock, noting that it was only 4:00 in the afternoon and there was definitely still some, if not much, thinking time left.

He opened up a word document on his computer. Took a good long sip of his weak tea (because he was running out of tea bags and the money to buy more, so therefore only used half a tea bag per cup) and typed:

My plan.

He thought carefully. Summed up some likely questions:

What would I like to achieve?

What steps must I take to succeed?

E.g. Who must I kill?

Then he laughed because that last question wasn't serious but was instead a small show of his vast and glorious humour.

He typed these likely questions down. He noted the words. The beginning of each sentence began with a _W_. This was intriguing. He even began to believe the three _W_ 's were important. To him at least. To him, those questions were the beginning of a turning point, THE turning point! THE turning point to an amazing and rewarding, impassioned, and above all successful life.

It was realizing this that put him on the path of answering these questions.

"I would like to achieve a tattoo of 3 W's."

He stood by a mirror "I would like to throw an art exhibition, exhibiting my work!"

He stood by a painting "I want to be fit!"

He threw on some clean undies "I want a girl friend!"

He typed this beneath his newly abbreviated questions - three _W_ 's. This had lost the original meaning of most questions except the first – What would I like to achieve... But it didn't really matter because without the second question he was doomed to stagnate. And stagnation was his curse and nature.

After typing:

. I would like to achieve a tattoo of 3 W's

. I would like to throw an art exhibition, exhibiting my work

. I want to be fit

. I want a girl friend

He noted that all answers started with _I_ 's. It meant something, so he changed his first answer to:

. I would like to achieve a tattoo of 3 W's and 4 I's.

He'd go to bed early this night and wake up early as well so that he could start his magnificent journey. The journey of "Wwwiiii!"

~~~

The One

Dedicated to my brother, Jacob

A1 wakes to the alarm in his head, pushes away the advertisements from his visuals and audio and the covers from over his body. The apartment is pretty big. He even has a toilet and an entire room for entertaining guests.

For some reason, the lights aren't on. The window is connected to the mains and the view won't turn on either. Bugger. A power cut. It usually meant they were building again. They'd swapped and changed the layout of Chelsey Heights, (Otherwise known as Sector H 656), so much in the last 12 months, that A1 had gone from taking 5 minutes to get to work to an entire 30! It was unheard of. He'd sent complaints, but they had changed nothing on his behalf. Maybe this cut would be better. He had to start seeing the cup half full.

He thinks of some Beethoven to calm him down, but the house doesn't start playing... He hates power cuts. He'd have to revert to music in his head, which is nothing but distracting.

He dresses quickly and leaves the house smartly with, instead of Beethoven in his mind, his messages rolling over. His X wanted to know what he is up to. That's interesting. He'd been a tad lonely, even that mess would be a good change in routine to his daily boredom.

He hops on the closest moving walkway and speeds along to the gym, where he downloads his mind onto a computer to watch the latest in the news, while a simulator does some exercise for him.

H sector is celebrating its 80th Sun day. A whole 80 years since anyone had seen the sun in H sector, it is celebrating 80 years of a pure modern world. You could still see the sun of course, if you were rich enough, or knew the people who are rich enough to stay in the richest sectors, where they pay huge prices for windows above the smog. Sector H is below sea level, so going that high means a lot of money and a lot of travel, not to mention access to the maps that could get you there. There are rumours of underground types who could get you there by other means. It didn't matter. A1 had seen the sun enough in old movies to determine it was nothing more than a shiny globe. He'd had one put into his entertainment system at home, to surprise his guests with a sunny day at the beach when they walked in. All the same, it would be quite a party this night.

Reloaded into his body, he feels his muscles pulled sore. He takes an elevator to Macdonald's and eats their Chelsey Heights special breakfast. He opens his friend list and notices Barry C is just coming in. He sends a hail. A1 lets Barry locate him and together, they eat.

"Good day, A1."

"Hello, Barry. What's news?"

"Oh, not much really. Work, work, work."

"Know how you feel. Well, at least it's the holidays tomorrow. Are you going away with your family?"

"Yes, we thought we might visit Grandma together and then take a visit to the zoo."

"How is your grandmother?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Indeed, four hundred years have turned her into a shining ideal."

"A1, once upon a time, they would have shot you for sleeping with a woman that old."

"Once upon a time, women didn't live to 400 years. And men with the years I have, had peckers that only answered to a pill. People grew old. Once upon a time is once upon a time and we live in the now, a now that spits on age and the past.

"True."

"If your grandmother was given her birthing rights back, I might even consider becoming your step-grandfather."

"She's such a woman to you, is she?"

"Well no, I think she could be in time, but I don't really know her. There was a year back, when we had some great times though, my friend."

"I would prefer not to know, really.... But I must admit, my friend, growing up to a granny as startling as her, could do some strange things to a pubescent boy's mind."

"You? No, I doubt you're really related at all, Barry. I wouldn't worry."

"Thanks, A1. Its been a true pleasure to talk with you."

"And you. But now you have to go to work, or have I truly offended you?"

"By far and above, you have offended me beyond any common ground. But truly, the Tubers won't wait."

"Tell me about it." A1 and Barry parted ways.

A1 gets up and stretches and takes to the nearest walkway again. He looks up at the roof and observes the clouds that scroll across it. When he was a boy, he'd read of other boys from older times who'd gazed up at clouds and made images of them. He'd played that game well enough thereafter, until he realised the clouds repeated every three hours and forty minutes.

It's truly time to work. Barry was right, Tubers never wait. The walkway takes him right to Venice 1. It was the first artificial Venice made in the modern, sunless new world.

The sky is ever at dusk in Venice 1 and the gondoliers that push their way slowly down the crystal, glassy blue canals, sing random lalalalalalilaliaaaa's that are answered, conveniently, by the women in the reproduction ancient medieval houses, who re-peg dry clothes (so as not to wet any one below... conveniently), all in the roll of keeping the true feeling of Venice romantic and fantastical!

A1 loves Venice 1. This is what it's all about. Real living. Little alleyways hiding little Starbucks and yummy smelling Pizza Huts, all Italian facade. He would love to see the real thing. No one could be prouder about where they work. Even if he is just a tubes maintenance man, he believes that being in the area makes him something special. At lunch he'd go for a slice of pizza and perhaps, even, a glass of wine. You don't get more sophisticated than that. In fact, most scholarly types hang out there. Which is why he is familiar with such types as Bonard Bonard.

But, until that time comes, when we may talk of Bonard Bonard some more, it is work time. Are the pipes airtight? Are the Tubers in need of anything? What is their health like? Who wants to move faster or slow down?

The Tubers are a species from outer space who take care of us Humans. They are who keep us alive; food, electricity. We'd covered our earth in human expansion so totally, not a square foot of earth was subject to sunlight. In return for our humanly needs, the Species requested observational tubes that they might pass through our world in order to discover the soul. The species are convinced they are without soul and that we are with it. We don't even know what soul means, but obviously it was something they desire and believe they could discover by watching us from within their tubes that wind about our cities like spaghetti.

A1 feels the tube heat momentarily as a Tuber passes through.

"Hi!", he calls. The heat returns long enough for the Tuber to murmur its hello, before rushing off again. Some are fast and some are slow. Obviously, the fast think that looking for soul at Venice 1 is pointless, while the slow, sometimes days slow, see the light in such a place. These types, A1 approves of.

"Is it not beautiful here?" A1 finds himself asking one of these slow ones, who'd arrived not long ago. The tubes are hot with the Specie's presence and maintaining the tube systems keep A1 occupied but not distracted from conversation.

"It is interesting." It replied.

"Oh? Interesting. How so?"

"I believe that you find this place beautiful because you still worship the earth."

"Really?"

"Yes, but you are confused."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that, even if this place is not real, it is still a representation of how the earth was. How beautiful it was. You love this place because there is water. Because the houses represent houses made from the earth, of raw materials, stone and wood. Because you still love the sky, you recreate it on the ceiling. I think the soul is purely respect or worship for something you don't think you've made, or are a part of. Yet, you are a part of it."

"I guess that's true."

"Do you not miss the old days?" The Tuber asks from within.

"I might, if I had known them."

"But, you do know them enough to know you are missing out?"

"I'm not sure if these simulations are missing out on much."

"Much? Do you believe simulations miss out on anything?"

"Well, they have to, I guess. But not much worth worrying about, I'm sure." A1 reasons.

"I'm sure you are curious though. That too, is part of being a great human, I think. Those who would find out more, generally gain more."

"I'd like to see what real sunlight feels like."

"You could."

"No. I doubt very much that I could." A1 counters.

"You have two arms, two legs, a head. You are in shape. You can speak. You have what it takes to do whatever you wish, Maintenance Man."

"No, I don't have the money. That's worth more than arms and legs."

"But you do have the money. You are human. Use your arms and your legs, your communication skills to tap that... concept you humans call money."

"Money isn't a concept."

"It is."

"It's a law! Without money, what can I do?"

"If money is your obstacle, I suggest you go around it, or beat it, take it with you, but as a tool, not a weight that drags you backward."

"Fairly spoken, but I am no business man. I don't have the patience for it."

"Then find a sunny day in another way."

"A sunny day?"

"Yes!" The Tuber is feeling impatient with the maintenance man. "Have you not considered the extent of these tubes? Follow them."

"I don't have enough money."

"For what?"

"I'd at least need some for food. It is a long trek to the top and dangerous."

"Borrow some. Or sell your house. You don't need it any more."

"YES I DO!"

"Nah, not if you feel a sunny day. Once you feel nature, I promise you, you'll never want to leave. It's a hive of business and control, this place. You're controlled by walls. You can't travel more than 4 meters up, without hitting your head."

"Why do you observe it, Tuber, if you do not believe in it?"

"I am studying your souls; what makes you so different to us."

"What is it?"

"I do not know."

The end of the day comes slowly. Tuber after Tuber passes through. A1 is preoccupied. He'd been convinced, somehow, that he had to see the top. It is a long way to go, but he has to, though it will take him some months to finally believe in himself.

It is a Thursday and A1 is meeting Bonard Bonard for a walk about the canals in Venice 1. He intends to let his suave friend in on his plan to reach further than these common grounds. He is going to ask for money. Bonard Bonard is a famous writer and has just made a killing on his new romance/murder/mystery novel. It goes by the name, 'The Thorns Of The Rose'. A1 hates it.

"Hello, Ay." Bonard Bonard greets him upon a foot-bridge that stretches over one of the smaller alley canals. Bonard wears a loose white shirt, unbuttoned enough to show the black curls of his chest hair. He is lean, but broad shouldered, curly mustached and ponytailed. He is like a musketeer or a well dressed pirate. He is all man. Women love him, and men. He is often fluctuating between homosexuality and being straight, but never bisexual as a rule. He is either this way or that, he would inform his friends loudly enough for all the world to hear. For Bonard Bonard there is no such thing as a grey area in between black and white. No compromising to being man.

"Real men make up their mind entirely." He never says 'stick with it', though. Bonard sticks with nothing and no one, including his friends, such as A1, who would find himself (a little too often), out of fashion. However, when they were friends they were the best of, as long as A1 avoided stepping into Bonard Bonard's other friendship circles.

Bonard Bonard also calls A1 'Ay'. It is trendier. A1 wants to feel trendy. He likes donning his striped tight fitting t-shirts and pointy leather shoes. He'd apply a tad of foundation and make his hair slick and pasty over his scalp.

"Hello, Bon Bon! What's new my friend?"

"I have decided to marry!"

"WHO?! I did not know you were with anyone at the moment."

"I am not. But will be! I must be and should be, Ay."

"If you say so. Why?"

"I fear I will look back on my life and say I have spent it mostly alone."

"I'd say you have spent it with a fair few people, Bonard Bonard."

"Yes... But I want to wake in the morning with a woman next to me and feel good about it. Not just good for my ego's sake."

"Fair."

"Oh, life is a twisted, cruel thing!"

"Why is that Bonard Bonard?"

"Oh! I do not know Ay. I feel I am a mystery even to myself. What woman would want to marry a man such as Bonard Bonard. I am a puzzle, a dark pillar of society wrapped in shadow."

"Don't knock yourself up over it, Bonard Bonard."

"I am knocked up! I can't help it. I am dreadfully depressed. Please don't let anyone find out. But, but, I fear I may die alone!

"Oh dear."

"I am glad we can talk this way, Ay. We are not the worst sort of friends, you or I."

"Indeed."

"Indeed, Ay... Indeed."

"Anyway, Bonard Bonard, I need a favour."

"Indeed?"

"Yes."

"What kind of favour?"

"Money."

"Oh, I see..."

"I am leaving. I am going up to see real daylight."

"You're leaving? I forbid it! You are my friend. We friends stick together. Not ask for money so you can follow some kind of dream you've had."

"A dream now, a reality tomorrow. I will leave with or without it."

"How?"

"I will follow the tubes."

"Who put this shit into your head?"

"Tubers. But it isn't shit."

"You're shit!"

"Why?!"

"I open up to you! I am depressed... and... and I want to marry soon and you want to leave me! Leave me to myself so that I can snowball down the slopes of depression, sink into the depths of my hollow soul."

"Fuck off." A1 couldn't believe he'd said that. The air turned electric.

"What do you mean?!"

"I mean, I need the money to follow my dream and you won't give it to me, purely because you reckon you're depressed and need to marry... again."

"Again?! This, my friend, is the first time I've wanted to marry a woman!"

"There is no woman. There is no one in your life. But you are right. Last time it was a man, a man equally nonexistent."

"It was you." An awkward silence. It penetrates deep. Bonard Bonard looks miserably at his friend. All the woe in the world laps up against A1.

"Fuck off."

"Fuck off?! Fuck you! I'm opening up and again you throw me down, throw me AWAY!"

A1 can't help but laugh. "Fuck off." And he walks away.

A1's X is named Jane. She is considered quite the artist. She exercises modern-interpretist-energy-release paintings; meaning she gets all the colours together and swirls them about a canvas, only stopping to let the paint dry (before continued swirling) if the colours begin to shitify. Meaning, if the paints are swirled too much, the appeal could only belong to those who like the sight of diahorea. Apparently, the skill of modern-interpretist-energy-release painting, is in high frequency with Jane. She is a freak, they say. The energies just flow through her to the extent that people from far-off sectors come to buy, or even learn, from the legendary artist. She is famous. She is successful. These are the kind of things that part a relationship if the other half is plainly A1. But it wasn't so. Not this time. It had in no way gotten between them. A1 was never dissatisfied dealing with maintenance work on the alien tubes. It was fascinating and he could articulate his job description to any of Jane's clients and high society friends, with such passion, that it did nothing but guarantee a total respect and a likely sale for her. He is a charismatic man.

A1's X is rich.

"I'm going with you!" is her response. Her hair is tied back, revealing entirely her startling features. Sharp, sharp eyes that speak of clarity, yet instead express her dream worlds with pure conviction. They are blue like ice, shallow pools of eyes you could bounce straight off the surface with barely a splash. Her nose is straight, from brow to tip, sharp also. It is the sharp edge of a sword, even slightly elongated to look upon. Her mouth is all softness like her round little chin that escapes deeply into a long, long neck. Like a swan. And she is, oh, so elegant. She is beautiful. Truly.

Why had they broken up? They had passion. They had looks. They worked well together. Yet A1 hated her artwork and she wasn't particuarly keen on tubes. They loved each other, but they weren't going in the same direction. Isn't it obvious? So I guess I'm wrong... Work had gotten in the way.

But now there is an opportunity to follow a course. The surface, as mythical and beautiful as the utopia of any religion. And they could get there. It is a possibility. It is like some old crusade to the holy-land. With enough underworld publicity, they could even start their own cult.

"Our passports won't get us far enough. and money can't change that!" She says, shaking her head a day later, the day after a night of passionate reconnection. They'd spent the morning in bed discussing how to get there.

"We'll follow the tubes."

"We'll be tracked!"

"There are supposedly types who can deal with that sort of crap."

She turns onto her back and regards the ceiling as if it was some nonsensical element. "I might know where we can find those types."

That evening they stroll the streets, jacket lapels upturned, hands in pockets. She wears sunglasses and he a bandana around his head. They are gangsters tonight.

They are in a residential area. This is where Jane's friends bought drugs. Jane doesn't like drugs. They do funny things to the shape of her eyes; and looking beautiful in her own unique way, means more than a giggle and a tickle. But tonight she is doing it, buying, but not taking drugs. Her X husband by her side, acting, a bad pretender holding a make-believe gun in his jacket pocket.

"...In my pants, Jane!" He informs her, like he is talking to a ignoramus. "I'm not mafia! The look is Gangsta."

She giggles and wraps an arm around his.

"Hey, no giggling. You're mean and sexy." Which is why she is dressed like a prostitute.

They arrive at the dealer's house. A1 suddenly feels frightened. He swallows it with a gulp along with the sudden realization of what they are doing. He knocks.

The man who answers the door is everything they expected. Rough faced, hairy, leather jacket, messy singlet, no pants on, save his boxers. He blows cigarette smoke around them, peeks outside, looking left and right down the street.

"Name's Pete. Who the fuck are you?"

Jane speaks up first, while A1 does a little shift of his feet, a shrug of his jacket and an, 'I don't care', one sided lip raise, directed at society in general. Very in character, Jane thinks and hopes she is making an equally good impression of a scanky drug fiend.

"My name's Jazmeeeena." She smiles abundantly and leans forward so that Pete might see the cleavage she'd donned the dress especially for. "And this is a friend of mine. Dom."

Pete's eyes seek to undress her. He remembers himself and checks out A1. "In ya pop. Yeah, your mate said you were coming down."

Pete closes the door, trapping everyone inside to the relentless beating of his home's stench, the silent slow death of Pete. A fog, about the ceiling, of cigarette smoke.

His home is empty. Small. A bedroom, a body cleansing room and a bench pushed up to one corner. It's a dark hole and a lamp upon that bench is all that illuminates the walls, stained acrid yellow.

"Look, I have to tell you, but I ain't getting you to the surface. That just ain't my job. What you want me for is my contacts."

"So you know who can get us to the top."

"Yeah, I reckon. It's me job to know that sorta fing." He takes out a new cigarette. Offers the box around. No one takes one, so he flings it onto the bed. He pats the bed. "Take a seat."

Jane sits down and crosses her legs high, letting her thigh reveal itself from the dress as it escapes higher. A1 stands, he leans against the wall and bumps off it rhythmically.

"So when can you introduce us to your friends, Pete?"

"Oh um... Now I guess... But you know it will cost you."

"We know." A1.

"Yeah we know, but not how much."

"200."

"Oh Pete." Jane's disappointment is painfully obvious and Pete's own face crumples somewhat too. She slips some of her hair behind one shoulder revealing the flesh of her long neck. "We just don't have that kind of money to spend."

"Well, what can you spend?" He swallows, knowing he's being screwed over by her charms, but it would have to be impossible for any single man to pull away; screwed over all the same.

"We can offer you 100."

"Is that all?"

"I hate to say this, Pete, but you will have to take it or leave it. Maybe, one day I could make it up to you."

A1 strains desperately to keep quiet and from laughing. His X is quite a woman.

An hour later, they are in another small compartment. It's lighter and smells better, though Pete's presence is doing its best against it.

The man in the armchair at one end of the room is lean in a wiry, strong sort of way. He has very sharp eyes and a bald scalp. His name is Paulanis. He will get them to the top. For a price.

"And that price, my adventurous friends, is your first born child to serve me the rest of his days."

Jane doesn't have a birthing license and is about to tell him, but A1 steps forward and shakes his hand. "It's a deal."

"I will come back when it's born. Your honour and your freedom upon the surface depend on it."

The day is yet unborn. The sky is riddled with stars so thick it casts its own magic illumination. The land about is cast with deep shades of blue. It is fresh above the buildings and a wind, icier and colder than what they are used to, buffets them, throwing the clothes about their bodies wildly.

Paulanis stands aside from the two. They are caught in the real splendor of nature, the splendor no illusion could ever capture. It grips them like it had gripped him so long ago. He'd take them somewhere safe. There are parklands, built by the wealthy few, where couples like A1 and Jane might get lost. In fact, they'd likely die in this environment. There are no Macdonalds, no enviro-conditioners.

"My head is silent." A1 remarks, startled.

"You're beyond the media. You've gone a lot further than your society glue." Paulanis reminds them.

"I've never been without it. I can't even locate you guys!"

"Does that upset you?"

"No, but it's like losing an arm or an entire sense gone useless."

"It's bought you freedom. That, and your first child." Paulanis said.

And so it was. It became apparent that it was the food of the underworld that kept them babeless. But it was also apparent that A1 and Jane did not die and they kept themselves living off the high new world's self-sustaining abundance and did in fact pass on their first born to Paulanis, who trained and raised their child into the warrior he was ever meant to be. The prophesy child, the freedom warrior, THE ONE!

~~~

Murky Tradings

Dedicated to Nic Masman

Nebula Harris took a step forward into the light of the hatchway that connected his commercial "trading" barge, the _Mary Instant,_ to the hulking military sola jumper, the _MURKY 12._

His bare chest showed between the open edges of his flight suit, a relaxed grin on his face. Open, wide perceiving eyes peered into the near perfect dark of the innards of the solar jumper.

His information unit hummed lightly as it scanned constantly for gases, heat signatures and unstable pressures in the air. He wasn't afraid of the "ghost" ship. He'd been here before. The old vessel, seemingly lost or forgotten in the gassy astroid field known for its greeny mist as the Putting Green, was near impossible to find unless you already knew where it was.

It had found its way, centuries ago, into the cavernous cave of one of the asteroids with enough mass and gravity to keep the _MURKY 12_ in place.

It was a meeting place and trading port for shady, often illegal, dealings. According to most spacers who visited _MURKY 12,_ it was lawless, but to those species with large enough perceptions, it was clear the port wasn't so laissez faire. Security was tight yet subtle. Few knew who owned _MURKY 12_ and fewer cared. Adrian Hunt, the Strut, owned it. And like all Struts, he was as cruel as he was out of sight. If or when some creature broke his unspoken alien law, they'd be gone and, due to the understood lawless environment, no one had cause to question it.

Nebula Harris was in one of the new docking bays. It was almost pitch black for the respectful sake of light-sensitive beings. He'd only taken up this odd little park due to it being the only one no one would want soon.

The darkness played slightly on his nerves, despite his eye upgrades and information unit working in a million different ways to keep him safe and, above all, aware to all he could be.

His thumb felt the edge of his hand cannon strapped to his thigh and he peered behind to regard The Body. As per usual, The Body strolled a perfect two point five meters behind, in full body combat suspenders and bionics.

The Body was useful, loyal, and above all, human in essence. Though there were next to no written emotions in a Body, the 'next to' would easily be predictable to behavioral pattern predictors. Surprising to most and most of all to The Body, (though he suppressed this, as surprise scared him), was that he could be surprised. He was often in such a state of considering his existence as more than just 'The Body' , that it could keep him for hours in silent thought, fooling those around him into believing that he wasn't actually thinking anything. Then he'd kick himself for thinking in circles, forgive himself and continue being rather confused. Nebula Harris would reassure The Body, however, that he was living a happy existence.

Other than this, The Body, when found on the abandoned entity stone mining planet of ENTITY number 4, was thinking nothing else but combat. He was fighting for his freedom, Nebula had told him, though the Body thought he was fighting because he didn't feel quite right becoming the slave of those masters that had wanted to rule him. Nebula was different. Nebula reassured the Body that this was because he, Nebula, was a nice person while the others, Greener Grasses Company, were actually a bunch of immoral bastards. The Body's combat capabilities had secured his place on Nebula's ship and for this The Body was quietly grateful.

A bright light formed the silhouette of an opening door that, in turn, framed the silhouette of a body. It was Humanoid, save for the head that was purely, perfectly round and rather large.

Nebula's information unit corrected the light for his eyes under one silent command. The man (mostly man) in the door was a Smiley. The round head was yellow and marked with two spots for eyes and a crescent moon for a mouth. The mouth and eyes could have been drawn on, but they moved in simple animation across the yellow surface, like some ancient cartoon.

"Hello, Nebula Harris."

"What's your business with me, Smiley?" Nebula barked back. The Body, at the same moment took a step to the side and crouched in an open display of battle readiness.

The Smileys. They were the new leading illegal race in legal space. Their piracy was vast and indisputably powerful. They owned a third of the mineral systems in sector 3 of human space. Terra-forming colonies were inclined to pay vast sums of galactic currency to be left to their work, or "smiled upon" as Smileys put it. Their threat was too powerful to be handled by official government recognised or privately owned organizations, though not powerful enough to force the government into their favours. They were a nation and a way of life, near enough a religion. They recruited thousands upon thousands of new recruits into their ridiculous, round-headed, smiley-faced ways every standard year. They were building an army and most intelligent and survivalist businessmen had secret bonds with them.

"Tell your Body to relax, Nebula." The mouth animated before returning into that stupid smile. The Smiley's voice was that of a normal human and seemed ridiculous coming from such a happy child-pleasing image. Despite that, the eyes glowed red as he warmed up his eye beam lasers.

"Settle, Body." Nebula said over his shoulder.

"The Body settles." The Body replied, regaining his standing position, settling his body cannons and Bio-exoskeleton arms.

"Good." The Smiley said. "I don't have time to fuck around with rebellious free traders, slash smugglers, slash pirates, slash, in the end, the good guys, so I'll tell you what I'm here for, then you and I can go about our very separate, individual ways. You know I don't enjoy killing people Nebula, but if you become too rude, too crude, too hurtful to me, I will kill you. DON'T MAKE ME KILL YOU MAN. DON'T MAKE ME FUCKING KILL YOU, BECAUSE I FUCKING WILL! I WILL HURT YOU! I HAVE DONE IT TO OTHERS! I HAVE HURT PEOPLE, MAN!!!!"

"...ok."

"We want your services. Your reputation is rather outstanding and the stories that surround you inspire younglings from multiple races to take to the stars like heroes from books, save damsels in distress and dabble in old magics and secrets as old as the stars."

"What can I say?"

"Well, you're brilliant. Really rather brilliant." The Smiley went slightly red with embarrassment at the cheeks.

"Thank you." Smileys' random mannerisms, accompanied by their bizarre features, ruined behavioural-pattern-prediction-programs in one's information unit.

"I don't know how to say this... I'm a little turned on by you. You're sexy, soooo sexy. Sex me?"

"Get on with it."

"Oh? Not Smiley inclined are we? Well, fuck you man!"

"What do you need my services for?"

"Stop asking questions and I'll tell you, you rubbish bastard!"

"...."

"We need you to deliver a box. It contains a race called the Key."

"How big is the box and how fast does the race multiply."

"It's hardly more than a shoe box and they require about 1 cm every hundred years or so for growth and should take 0.01 of a blip in your ship's power core... shouldn't be much of a problem for you, as this shouldn't hold you up longer than a year or two."

"Good, good. Where am I going to?"

"System Freedom."

"Ahhhh, so you need someone who can get past the Free Space Guild." The Free Space Guild was a military alliance, consisting of over one hundred warrior civilizations, all striving to keep space clean of pirates and general troublemakers. The Smileys hadn't been seen in that part of space for many decades. System freedom was its centrepiece of Free Space Guild ideology.

"No shit, Sherlock."

"I'm not exactly the most innocent spacer you could hire for getting past the Guild's security forces, but probably the best at carrying out outrageously dangerous plans; which is why, I suspect, you hired me... So how much are you gonna pay me?"

"Irrelevant. We'll give you a worthy incentive, enough to keep your crew happy and perhaps a nice little holiday for yourselves after. But otherwise, your family's lives will be your biggest reward, hmmm? Your sister's life is at stake."

"I guess we understand each other, Smiley. I would hope you keep her in good care."

"Naturally. Finish your drop-off here, collect your crew, and I'll have the Key sent to your ship immediately."

"Indeed."

"Any necessary expenses can be paid for by myself. My name's Mr Robertson. I'll be making regular checks on your progress throughout the mission. We can supply your ship with whatever you need... vaguely. Understood?"

"Riiiight."

"Good, I'll also update you on exactly where to drop off the box, closer to the time. Now, fuck off."

The Smiley spun around and marched off into the light of the passageway beyond.

By the time Nebula reached the doorway, the Smiley was gone. It was time to meet Mr Gosmer.

The egg shaped corridors wove on into the ship, passing cleaner-unit robots and the odd shady figure, either prostitute or hall-lurker. They saw no other Spacers in this sector.

Doors swished out of their way automatically and vents hissed here and there. Little signs above the sliding doors told them where they were going. They'd met an intersection; one way to docks 3, 4, and 5, the other way to Grizzies cook up.

They turned to Grizzies. Music made quietly out to meet them. Soft female vocals sensually riding the smooth jazzy tune.

A hired guard stood outside the restaurant and stopped Nebula with a gnarled old hand to the chest.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Nebula Harris. Who wants to know?"

"I do."

"And your name is?"

"Don't have one. Show me your identity card." It was a Bigot. Arse-hole, mouth-hole, eating-hole, hearing and visual receptors all in the same ugly spot, on four legs and strong enough arms to tear steel.

Nebula pulled forth his security card along with a few currency chips. The Bigot didn't even look at the security card, but counted the chips one-by-one into his body pouch.

"More!"

"You're not getting any more, you ugly shit eater." Nebula growled while The Body extended his battle suit rifles and, for the second time, got ready to make combat. Nebula knew Bigots just liked to be arse-holes, which were literally all Bigots were.

The Bigot regarded the suited Body, his mean guns and bio-exo-boned arms.

"I respect your dominance in the situation."

The door swished open, revealing a gloomy little restaurant. A human singer was on a little stage, in a red dress. Very hot. The odd assortment of tables accommodated for most races, though most creatures in the room were humanoid.

Mr Gosmar sat in one of the many dark and unassuming corners of the room. The middle ground of the bar had few customers sitting at all, save those who watched the Jazz singer. _Shady, untrusting atmosphere_ , his information unit determined.

"Enjoy the music Body, there's no need to mistrust Mr Gosmer. I'll call you when we have to go."

"The Body will listen to the music carefully." The Body replied.

Mr Gosmar was also seemingly alone, though Nebula guessed he had half the space pilots in the bar under his payroll. He was human and handsome. He wore a suit of purple Ron-Ron material with armour memory systems hidden into the fabric, almost too well to notice. He was a genetics man and his robotics were few and (again) well hidden. He had a sharp nose and cruel smile. His eyes were hard and rather intense. It would have cost him to look like such a predator.

"Its nice to see you again, Harris."

"Same goes, Gosmer."

"Would you like a drink, my friend." Silky, silky voice.

"Hardly."

"Good, let's get onto the business side of things."

"Money."

"Goods."

"Very well, Mr Gosmar. We have your goods."

"Do you have them with you?"

"They are in my ship."

"Were they much of a nuisance?"

"They were nuisances only until I let one out of the air-lock for a brief instant. It was rather funny! You see I grabbed the biggest of them and..."

"Yes, I'm sure it was very amusing. Are any of them hurt?"

"Maybe some hurt feelings, but..."

"Good, good. Have your Body escort my men to your ship to pick up the cargo and in the meantime we can discuss further employment."

"We'll be discussing money first. Believe me."

"Agreed, for the next pick-up you'll be paid twice as much as this."

"I haven't received this payment, so how can I be paid anything except two times nothing."

"Oh very well, Mr Harris, your money..."

"Just Nebula please, Mr Gosmar."

"I do apologise."

"No, please don't. My money."

"Indeed."

"How much?"

"Two million in Guabish currency."

"That's a lot."

"I'm glad you're satisfied."

"I'm not. I only deal Galactic currency. Its hard to find a cash-converter who won't call officials on that kinda dosh."

"Surely you know someone?"

"I do, but it's out of my way."

"Where are you going?"

"System Freedom."

"By God, why? That's no place for you, Nebular. They'll have your head dangling from one of their justice ships."

"Probably."

"Someone's got you in a twist, Harris, I mean Nebula. Who?"

"Smileys."

"Rubbish." Gosmar took a moment to read his behavioural-pattern-predictor. "What do they want from you, then?"

"I'm carrying live cargo to Freedom. I don't know why, but they've found my relatives and their lives make a pretty good bargaining chip."

"Probably. I'll pay you one hundred thousand Galactics for the cargo."

"They've got my family."

Gosmar just laughed.

"What's funny about that?"

"Interesting, because I have your beloved Sabrina!"

"Why the space balls do you have her?"

"What do you think? I don't want my money in your hands."

"Well, you can have her."

"Fine." He raised a ringed finger and talked into it. "Kill the girl!"

"NO! You let her go or I'll kill you, Gosmar. I couldn't get away with killing that Smiley, but you're not a Smiley, are you? You're just wealthy."

"True, but you're wasting time. She'll die, unless you do what I tell you."

"Which is?"

"I need you to locate and secure a micro-race, known as the Key Hole."

"How big?"

"A shoe-box and they don't really get much bigger."

"Where?"

"Find a terra-former by the name of Remus Loreems. He will show you the way, though he may need some persuading of the type _you've_ needed."

"Where?"

"He's currently on a flight to New Foundations, taking the trade lanes. If you leave now you should be able to meet him... I will upload you co-ordinates. It's in the G-bug system. Good luck."

There was little more to say. "You're gonna die arse-hole."

Nebular's Information unit detected the sound of guns being drawn and readied from below tables. It was time to go, there was little to be done from here. Uncompromising opponents had forced him into a corner and it irked him no end. Nebular Harris was a man living primarily by the principle of freedom. It was his true value. It was what made him the great spacer, what had him exploring the unexplored or unexplorable, the driving fuel that pushed him beyond the limits, beyond the common ground. It was freedom that taught him he was beyond other men, that in fact, brought from him his true manhood.

"We shall see, Nebular."

"Yes, we shall see, Gosmer. I shall see the length of my arm, the barrel of my cannon covering your eye and you shall see a bright flash followed by infinite dark." Nebular turned and walked for the door. "Lets go, Body."

Back aboard the _Merry Instant_ , already in the cargo-hold, sat a little shoebox-sized thing of dull grey metal, presumably The Key. Atop it a little screen read:

OUR CONDITION: All's good, thanks

~~~

Hey

"Hey," he said in a voice he used to describe his war stories. "Where is the toilet?"

Joanne pointed to the back of the room, so off he went, tip toeing over tipped, plastic peacock sculptures. By the door stood a ceramic gnome with a toilet paper roll wedged violently over his painted blue hat, flaking considerably. The man stopped to look at the gnome's happy little face before smiling himself, pulling his fly open and strutting into the loo.

Joanne sat on her stool covered with paint from endless years of creativity. She looked ponderously at the full canvas in front of her, or rather, she looked at the winged rear, in mid flight, painted atop. It was a terrible piece and she knew it... but she asked anyway, not really believing her own, secret point of view.

"What do you think of my painting, John?"

~~~

Front liner

Dedicated to the year of 2006

Cynthia's flesh was sticky with hot perspiration. Hector peeled himself away. Crumpled, twisted sheets lay on the floor. He rearranged them over her. The room was cold. It didn't have a heater. The grey winter sky peeked through twisted cracks in the venetian blinds, dull illumination.

Neil Young played, faint background lyrics rolling by in the jaded passion of the room. He sat on the edge of the bed, feeling suddenly self-conscious in his nakedness. Clothes lay about his room like flowers of the recent past, her bra, his sock. Dressing was too much to think on.

She lay looking at him, obviously wondering what was wrong. He forced manners, lay down by her, draping an arm over the round curves beneath the sheet. She smiled and rolled her way beneath his arms to fall asleep, selfishly exhausted. He was not tired, but waited patiently while she bathed in the pleasant dreams of a future, a man who was more than just a casual relationship. He had thought of a future, once upon a time, too. Now, he knew he'd done it for the ideal, but lust had got the better of him again. Or something like that, he wasn't sure.

He thought about her lying next to him and how he should love her and how she deserved to be loved. He knew he wasn't a bad man. He was a respected man of vision, passion, creativity and intelligence. He was strong and handsome, and she made art and was beautiful, funny and an all round cutie. They deserved each other's love, for she would scratch his back and he'd wrap his coat around her when she was cold. They'd never argued and she swore sex couldn't be better. She even made him laugh. He should have felt proud to hold her hand in public.

But he felt passionless with her, even when he whisked her off for a quick kiss in the company of disapproving friends. He felt sad and thought his head was too full of uncertainties. But he was bored of having women who said they loved him, come around to finally hate him. He had no wish to hurt her. But he realised he'd have to.

"I don't love you, Cynthia." He was quickly left alone in his room.

Hector woke to a vaguely lit window of morning, overcast sky powdering his room. He rolled back the heavy blankets and stepped onto the cold wooden floor, crossed from his room to the bathroom, had a momentarily hot shower and growled as he dried himself with a cold, damp towel.

He completed forty push ups, sprayed on a layer of deodorant and trudged down the narrow stairs of his house.

Naked, he retrieved his clothes from the washing line. The pants were still slightly wet at the ankles but he didn't care. He covered his naked body outside, careless of the icy winter wind that stung his damp hair dry.

Back inside he went about turning the gas heaters on. He waited over the ticking switch as the flame worked to ignite the gas soaked mesh. He trudged back upstairs, where his house-mate had taken over the shower, singing some shitty pop song.

The kitchen was a pigsty, but he found his way to the eggs, some crusts of bread, and scraped something burnt off the pan. He left the washing-up to his house-mate, whose turn it was to clean the kitchen on the house roster.

Hector made his way with his breakfast to the lounge-room, stepping over the sleeping body of one of his regularly visiting friends. The room was filled with empty beer bottles. Half a slab still sat in an Esky by the door. Hector pulled a beer, scooped away a place to sit down and had his breakfast.

Another house-mate, Sarah, could be heard waking up downstairs. She thumped around downstairs, then thumped her way upstairs, opened the door, took a disgusted, groggy glance about the room and sat by Hector, looking into the kitchen. Blond, unwashed hair fell over a usually pretty face, now crumpled and smelling like morning. She wore her nighty, covered with angry teddy-bears on a field of Barbie pink. Hector passed her one of his eggs.

"Fuck, the kitchen's a mess." She said, in true awe.

"I know." Hector chuckled, remembering the long night he'd drunk away, not so many hours ago. "I'm getting pissed, then going to work. With a bit of luck Tommy'll have it done by the time I'm home."

Almost by magic, Tommy appeared at his name. Fresh and athletic, with a permanent stupid grin on his face. He laughed at the zombie-like appearances of his house-mates. "Morning house-mates, how we feeling?"

"Excellent, Einstein, how do you think I'd feel." Hector grumbled. He liked Tommy, but hated everyone in the morning.

"Can you do the dishes today, Tom boy?" Sarah asked. She didn't like to show her feelings to anyone very much. She was by far the boss of the house, the one who sort of kept things organised. In truth, Hector didn't believe she liked Tommy much. He was exactly what she wasn't, he was chaos while she was order. They put up with each other.

Tommy grabbed a beer and sat down. "Later. No worries."

Sarah got up and headed to the shower, secretly furious at Tommy's casualness.

"Bitch." Tommy said, under his breath.

Hector chuckled. "Go turn the hot water on in the kitchen. Wake her up a bit."

Tommy tried sculling his bottle and ended up spluttering frothy beer all down his woolly jumper. He stood up to go turn Sarah's shower into a cold wake-up and kicked the body on the ground as he went by.

"Wake up, Horse."

Horse grumbled something, withdrew his arm, checked his phone for the time, then stood up, letting the sleeping-bag roll off him down to his ankles.

"Wow, I didn't know where I was for a second." Horse was built more like a donkey. Big-boned, fairly muscular, dopey-eyed and bad-smelling, as he never seemed to find his way home to a shower. He was a real couch-surfer.

"Isn't that feeling weird?" Tommy called excitedly from the kitchen. Sarah squealed as Tommy took his revenge. "That feeling of thinking you're somewhere else, like your spirit hasn't caught up."

"Yeah. But everything to you is weird, Tommy." Hector called. "Fucking hippies."

Horse exploded into laughter.

Tommy came out from the kitchen, holding something rotten. He threw it at Hector, grossness splattering over his shoulder. Horse nodded his approval.

Hector laughed. "Probably deserved that." He admitted.

Tommy came back into the lounge with some of last night's leftovers.

Horse moved to get a beer. "Man, I'm s'posed to see my girlfriend today. This is gonna be hell. I just wanna sleep." Unlike the rest of the house, Horse had had a stable girlfriend for nearly two years, which did not seem to suit him. Those who knew him better, knew that he probably had more women than all the men put together, shamefully, behind his girlfriend's back. Hector didn't like Horse's girlfriend. In fact, not many people did. Her name was Emily and she was a bitch who never said thank you and had never apologised for spewing on the carpet of their house. Yet, because of this, she didn't feel comfortable coming over, so Hector rarely had to put up with her.

"Just dump the slag." Hector never hid his feelings towards Emily, unless confronted with her.

"Fuck off man! She's not your girlfriend. You don't know what she's really like." Horse was a little touchy toward the idea of his girlfriend being a total rotting cow-corpse.

"Whatever."

Tommy just laughed, spilling food all over the place.

Hector left the house for work. The weather had gotten worse and now it rained heavily. As usual, he'd worn as little clothing as possible. Jeans, t-shirt, jacket. He cursed not having a jumper, but, seeing his tram coming, he crossed the road and waited to jump on, instead of going home to get one.

The tram was full of people. School kids, all in shitty maroon uniforms. He got off at the next main intersection, Church and Swan. He walked down Swan St. At this hour, in this weather, the street was mostly filled with doddery old ladies wobbling by, weighed down with piles of shopping bags. Up ahead he saw some government supporter arse-holes who only just repressed their hatred for him when he declined their brochures. He crossed the road feeling triumphant he'd dodged them. But, to his surprise, one of the shits was waiting for him, a knowing and satisfied smile on his face. Little chihuahua.

"Don't even ask, arse-hole."

The face of a gold-medal winner quickly turned to shock. Hector couldn't help but laugh. "Don't worry, I'm not a rebel, but I don't have to like it, or you, so fuck off and get a job."

Hector turned around and quickly walked away, ignoring the pathetic insults the wanker tried to intimidate him with. He raised his finger over his shoulder.

Raising the middle fingers was one of Hector's many skills. Somehow, he managed to make it look longer, more obscene, different blood pressures between bone and skin made it patchy, white and pink. It made the recipient feel as though he'd just been turkey-slapped.

When he finally got to the train station, the downpour was impressive. He released Salam from his shift. Salam was a fatty who stole food from the store. Hector could always tell because of the crumbs about his chin.

The day went slow. Not many people were ever hungry on his shift, which in truth didn't bother him much. He read a while, drank from a thermos flask filled with cheap wine and generally let things slide into a stupor. He ended up giving one guy three dollars more change than he was entitled, but the guy didn't complain, so neither did Hector. The hand hit eight o'clock and Hector passed on his shift to some new guy.

Outside hadn't stopped its downpour. Feeling vaguely richer, he paid for a ticket and waited for the tram. On the tram some arse-hole sitting across from him clipped his nails. They went everywhere.

"What are you doing, mate?"

"Cutting my nails, why?"

"Don't, you're getting them everywhere."

"Sorry."

"No worries. Just gross is all, mate. I don't wanna sit among your filth."

"Do I look filthy to you?"

"No, looks have nothing to do with it. Nails are full of shit, is all."

"Bullshit."

"Nope. True. It's safer to kiss someone's arse-hole than their hands and that's a fact."

"Well you can have the arse-holes, mate."

Ha ha, good one, thought Hector, prickling slightly. "Speaking of arse-holes, what's your fucking problem." He snapped.

"Watch your mouth, kid."

"Can't really, I'd trip over."

"Fucking smart-arse!"

"You wanna go, dick-head?" The guy was clearly bigger. Hector didn't care, he was stronger than his youth suggested.

"Are you kidding me?"

"No, I'm not kidding you, arse-hole, you dirty piece of shit, I only asked for the right to be spared your filth on public transport."

People had moved away in the tram, one stupid woman scaring the shit out of her weedy boyfriend tried to intervene. "Calm down, guys. What are you gonna do, fight on a public tram?"

The guy with the nails ignored her. "You're fucked, you little shit."

"Come on then." Hector stood up waiting for the dirty bugger to follow suit.

"Come on guys, just calm down, its just nails." Her boyfriend tried to pry her out of the limelight. Hector hated women like this, women who thought they could look after themselves against violent men by talking reason to them. Little did the woman know, or care, that the responsibility landed on the guy's shoulders, when the situation turned to shit.

"Shut the fuck up, bitch!" Hector growled, suddenly releasing some adrenaline onto her. She literally quivered in fear. It gave Hector a sense of victory. She stepped back and the boyfriend led her away further down the carriage, pulling on the stop cord as he went. When Hector turned back to the man with the nails, he found him standing. Hector had a moment of fear, as he readied himself. He felt uncertainties grip about his body. A cold rush nibbled at his scalp and numbed his mind. The guy was big. Fuck it.

He punched the arsehole with a trained fist to his fat face, flooring him in one. "DON'T CLIP YOUR NAILS ON PUBLIC FUCKING TRANSPORT!" He roared and landed a heavy boot into the man's side.

The tram stopped and, feeling that he'd overstepped his mark, Hector jumped off the tram, walked the back streets to Church and got another tram home.

The boxing bag shook the back veranda as Hector released his pent up aggression.

"You've been fighting." Sarah said from the door. She'd come out for a cigarette.

"Fuck yeah! Oh, I mean, hardly... Just one punch."

"Did you kick his arse?" She asked lightly. She moved to a chair and sat watching the rain pour down into the courtyard.

"Yep."

"Cynthia came round looking for you."

The punching stopped and Hector shook his wrists out. "What did she want?"

Sarah lit up and blew a cloud of smoke into the cold, clear air. "Wanted to see you, I guess. Looked all mopey, like she needed to girly talk. I wasn't up to it, had to go shopping. I told her she could stay, though."

"When did she go?"

She didn't stay."

"I'd better give her a ring. Any other news?"

"Nope."

Hector pulled up a seat and sat in silence, while Sarah took a few puffs. She sensed he wanted to blurt out his story, but she enjoyed tormenting him with the illusion that she didn't give a toss.

Finally she asked, "What happened, anyway?"

Hector related his day's achievements, under-exaggerating the intelligence of his victim's wits and over exaggerating his brawn. The rain beat down. Or fell down in clumps.

"You be careful, Hector. One of these days someone will have to mop you up, I reckon."

"Shut up, it's me your talking about."

"Exactly."

"Tom cleaned the kitchen?"

"Nope."

Adrenaline flared back up, like wild-fire in a summer dry forest. "Is he home?"

"Yep."

Hector leapt from his chair. He ran into the house, sprung up the stairs. "TOM!"

He could hear Tommy behind his door. "Man, I was gonna do it. Just..."

"Just what, Tommy!" Hector said, slamming open the door.

Tommy raised his hand, two little square pieces of paper sat at the tip of his finger. Like a switch, Hector's temper went level and a broad grin crossed his face as he reached for one Tab.

The Australian police had long been reduced to a small number who mainly circled the transport system looking for pretty girls who hadn't validated their tickets. They'd detain them, rape them, then leave them with a fine. If they ever asked males for their tickets it was because they were bored and wanted to beat someone up. Hector always carried a ticket and a knife. People had died for not having either.

The new police, the foreign ones, circled everywhere in armed patrol cars. They all looked the same, clones, and they weren't human. If a situation occurred they didn't find comfortable, they'd just shoot. That's why Hector kept the knife well hidden in the lining of his jacket.

Today, the household walked to the city. Sarah was pretty and wouldn't go on the trains. A freedom march in the city wasn't a big event, yet the house-mates were discontent just sitting around while their life continued to become more and more monitored, watched, compressed. In the last year, government security cameras had tripled in the city, doubled in the outer suburbs. House raids for rebel activity had become a regular occurrence. Two in their house within the last year. Their area had seen a lot of rebel activity.

On this day, the march was a reflex that had hardly been arranged, but rather, expected when the new government had announced that they'd soon be restricting items of clothing and styles considered too rebellious. Everyone was angry. Individuality was being stamped out. So everyone did what made them feel better, they marched. They marched through Melbourne for a good few hours chanting their disgruntlement. The new powers in government allowed this, knowing full well it left people feeling falsely undefeated.

Hector was conscious of this as were many people, yet, march after march, the household would join the flock. In truth, it did make them feel better. It was like a controlled fire, the government police waited around like firemen, in case they had to put it out. Hopefully one day it would leap past its bounds and then burn over the rotten wood of the new government, to consume and start again. Never gonna happen.

Despite all this, there was a certain buzz in the air. There probably always was. Every march always rang with hope that its demonstration would be heard. Could this one prove different from the countless rest? Probably not. Yet Hector wondered whether people would stop wearing the clothes they liked. Many of the movies and books they liked no longer seemed to be on the shelves, thanks to some new law or another. People were pissed off, but not for long. Melburnians were perfect sheep, passive, obedient in all ways, yet bleeting protest just the same.

Horse was with them again, he'd stayed again the night before. He carried a flagpole over his shoulder. It simply read, 'FUCK OFF.' Horse didn't even know why he was angry. Many people had given up listing the reasons why they were so angry and had instead settled for a strong discontent. In the end 'fuck off' was going to be overlooked, just like all the other signs, anyway. No one else in the household had brought flags. Everyone, without question, had likely brought a weapon though. The house individually, and secretly, all fantasised over a riot; and no one wanted to be caught unawares.

The walk wasn't long, yet long enough for Horse to start complaining. "Why couldn't we have caught a fucking train?"

No one answered. Horse was being stupid. Not a soul walked by without noticing Sarah's pretty face, and cops would be around every station.

"The march is long started, now!" He complained.

"So? I don't wanna be out all day." Tommy said, unpatriotically.

They were approaching the rear of the protest. People lingered on behind, foreign police behind them, mechanically waiting for something to happen that never would.

Hector looked upon one of the foreigners. He was mostly human in appearance, except that he had such pale skin. Over him, he wore a bulky mechanical armour, coloured yellow. His head was hairless, a ridge in his skull ran down the middle, the only real difference from humans. That, and the fact that he was identical to the rest of his fellow cops.

"Oi copper!" Horse called out to the closest. "Get off our turf!"

"Do you make threat?" The cop said in a high pitched mechanical voice. Simultaneously, three other cops out of hearing range, spun to train rifles on Horse. Hector still hadn't figured out how they communicated with each other. They never talked, unless to humans.

"No threat mate, just testing your reflexes." Hector frowned his disapproval at Horse. Horse was like him in his daring. Only, Hector never risked his friends for his own entertainment. Tommy looked about to shit his pants.

The copper nodded his head. "Very well."

"Bizarre!" Horse thought aloud.

"Dickhead!" Sarah settled everyone's fear with a thump on Horse's cheek that nearly toppled him.

The friends moved on, coming up with the dregs. Horse waved his rude flag.

The mass of protesters ahead of them blurted out rubbish rhymes, anti-government chants and a fuzz of abuse. Intelligence was missing from these marches, Hector thought. In the end they really did mean nothing and he suddenly wanted to go home.

But the march continued through the endlessly tall walled streets. It wound on and on and Hector felt his feet beginning to ache.

Tommy had met some other protester from the crowd, a short bloke with wild eyes and unkempt hair. He was talking about life beyond the wall. A subject that gripped everyone's fascination. Freedom beyond the wall! In a place called the countryside, only read in books. There were stories that people lived there still and that the Huon Ra didn't control them, but let them be. Hector had never seen sky that wasn't green or pink or, at least, grey because of the smog. He'd once read a line from a children's book: "The sky was a deep blue, like only the sky could be."

But Hector had given up dreaming earlier than his friends. 'Fuck the outside!' He'd say. 'We'll all die here dreaming!'

The small guy was going on and on. He'd just started getting into the rebels, the resistance, the saviours! "The wankers!" Hector spat. His friends rolled their eyes and the bright little guy turned in a mixture of confusion and shock.

"What do you mean, wankers?" He spluttered. "They're the only ones who'll save us!"

"Are they? They haven't done anything yet. Those wankers are why there's over 500 cameras up this street. Its because of those arseholes that we get raids in our household. We've had our door knocked off its hinges twice!"

"Yeah, but one day they'll save us!"

"How? Don't dare say 'hope'!"

"Well why not 'hope'?"

"Gee, good point. Go fuck yourself. If you can't be bothered doing anything about our lives other than sit around and hope, then you're not worth saving in the first place!"

The guy sensed the violence in Hector, noticed the scowling lines of his face. He faded away into the crowd, giving up what he might have said to someone else.

His friends said nothing. Tommy expelled some air, he hated the situations he got into with Hector and Horse around.

The march lingered on. Horse was convinced he got a glimpse of someone who might still have Asian blood in him. The only possibility of there being any other races in Australia, save for Aboriginals and white man, was next to none. They'd been taken away and terminated a long time ago. It was rumoured that Melbourne was once a place of strong multiculturalism. Not any more. Asians and anyone not caucasian were things talked about in stories. As a child, Hector saw them as something mystical. He'd make up stories about how he'd seen Asians in inconspicuous places. This childish imagination still hadn't left Horse, who to this day didn't trust he could sleep safely without checking beneath his bed for monsters or a Chinese man! Hector supposed that's why he slept away from home so often.

Why only white men and Aboriginals survived, was a mystery. There were far too many unexplained aspects surrounding the Huon Ra society. They were aliens, after all.

The protest wound through the towering streetscape, like a dribble of life through city grey pulp. A white noise; thousands of voices singing freedom through megaphones, a crackling rumble.

Flags waving, feet stamping, guards on a sharp edge, splitting equally between two decisions: to kill or let live. Threats were read in the mass crowd. Secrets could be concealed!

Hector knew he had been handed something in the crowd soon after the short man had gone away. Paper. He was interested to see, but if it was drugs he'd be executed if discovered with it. He'd slipped it into his pocket. It was impossible to find out who it was, the crowd drifted about, inconstant like a sea. Now, he really wanted to go home.

"Prison? We're better off dead!" A man yelled over a megaphone. Hector could just see him ahead sitting on someone else's shoulders. Weird thing to say, Hector had time to think, before all thought was vanquished. The man literally exploded.

The sight was momentary. A loud flash, bright as the sun, landed everyone on their backs in tangles of limbs. Hector knew that the guy laying on top of him was dead, limp. People screamed. A layer of white smoke fogged the air, eyes stung. So many cries of agony. Shots rang out. Government guns hissed streams of something invisible and quick into the crowds. People were cut cleanly in half. Hisses darted around the air like a cruel wind. The government police didn't think twice about a massacre, when they were worried about rebellious activity.

People had started running in all directions, fear like a slap on their faces. Most were cut down. Other people still lay or half sat, staring numbly at the crater where the bomb had gone off. There, burning people struggled against their ruined limbs to get away from their pain. Hector scrambled away from the dead weight, pushing people away who clawed at him for his aid.

Sarah! Tommy! Horse!

He stepped on someone's leg, slid off and collapsed onto Tommy, who looked like a stunned fish.

"UP!" Hector hauled his friend to his feet, from beneath layers of bodies. "RUN!"

Sarah dottered around silently, trying to pull bits of gore out of her hair. She was in shock. So was Hector. He dived at her, speared her to the ground. The air sighed with searing violence from the guns above.

It wasn't her gore, she was ok. "YOU'RE OK! SOMEBODY ELSE'S!"

Tommy was beside them, feebly, weakly trying to pull them up. Suddenly Horse was in the scene. He pushed a stunned Tom away to pull up his friends.

Hiss. Horse's throat exploded blood and he was down. His eyes locked with Hector's a brief moment as if to say, "Oh shit they got me! I'm dead!"

"COME ON!" Hector pushed his friends off the main road.

The train station was filled with people. Australian cops in riot gear waited at the entrances, guns drawn and trained at frightened people who came near. A scatter of bodies lay dead in front of them. People cried, not daring to come closer to their fallen loved ones, without their tickets.

The house-mates all held their tickets high and walked slowly forward. Hector knew they had to get out and now. Walking home would be far more perilous.

"Go through, if you've got tickets!"

The house-mates passed through. Sarah didn't look so pretty, covered with blood.

The train took off. The ancient carriage stunk of piss. The seats were ripped and stained. Smart people stood.

A policeman walked down the aisle, pushing through the crowd. Another copper came a moment later. They stopped, looked at Sarah.

"Ah, there we go." First one.

Then the other. "You need a clean woman."

"We can sort that out at the station." They laughed.

Hector said nothing, but watched to see if some twist in fate would have them move on.

"Ticket, Love."

Hector held out his and hers.

"Now, now, don't need two." The first one took a ticket and placed it in his pocket.

"That's her ticket." Hector growled. The other one rammed a fist into his stomach and Hector crumpled to his knees.

"Come on, Girl."

"No!" Sarah snapped.

The other one took her by the hair and dragged her close. The train slowed. Something muffled over the speaker indicated they were approaching the next station.

The first one kicked Hector in the face and dragged Sarah to the door. She screamed and hit at the copper. The other one punched her square in the face and she shut up.

Hector crawled to his feet. His jaw hurt hugely and blood poured from his mouth, where a tooth hung only by a shred. Tommy leant over him and tried to pull him up. Lights through the windows. They were five seconds or so to stopping. That's where the cops'd get off too.

His legs sprang and one of the coppers spun to meet him, drawing a pistol from his side. "Little shit!"

Hectors blade, held through the lining of his jacket, pierced material and came as a surprise up into the chest of the bastard. It wasn't enough. The second jab landed the guy in between the ribs. He huffed in pain. The gun went off, someone screamed behind. He stabbed again, dropped his weapon for the pistol and shot past one dying cop to claim another.

The doors were closing. Hector forced them back open. Tommy tried to help up a slowly recovering Sarah. Hector pulled her out onto the platform by her foot. The door closed. Tom was still aboard.

"Fuck!" Hector hauled a crying, terrified Sarah to her feet and strung her over his shoulder. He ran.

~~~

Sollai Rhys

Sollai's first collection of writings, has come on the back of fiery youth, armed with passion, conviction and humour. His writing holds the energy of a great imagination and the inspiration from his many traveling experiences. Sollai Rhys was born in 1988 in Australia, to artist parents who moved abode regularly, and traveled constantly. A country boy, he left home when he was 17 to complete his final year of secondary school in the city, in a share house. On completing his schooling he took work in factories, in an abattoir, in telephone sales; saving to travel. While traveling, he took an online teaching course, TEFL, to enable him to teach in Thailand and Hong Kong. Now, in Italy, in the mountains of Tuscany, he lives in a small village house with his brother, finding occasional paid work as a gardner and teacher. His self-motivation and belief in himself is remarkable at such an early age. His constant companion has been his computer where a multitude of stories and insights are typed down daily. From these gleanings we have compiled ten stories, an eclectic selection, that give insight into Sollai Rhys as a writer and give the promise of the greatness to come.

