The militiaman, p.1
The Militiaman, page 1
part #1 of Totality Series
Totality: The Militiaman
James Huffman II
11/01/2013
Dedication
To my children Anita-Faith, Gregory, and Mary Jane. May this be a legacy you can be proud of.
Acknowledgments
This book (and series) has been a long time in coming, and many people have had a hand in bringing it to fruition and helping it land in your hands, be those hands figurative or literal.
There are several people I’d like to thank by name. In alphabetical order, they are: Bradley Fletcher, Sam MacMillan, Mike Norris, Spencer Renehan, Amber Saint Clair, Wendy Lynne Timbrell, Bobbi Todd, tre, and Rakhee Watson. All played an important role in bringing Totality to life.
I would be remiss, of course, if I didn’t thank my publisher, Moirae Publishing, for getting this book out there.
Last but certainly not least, thank you, dear reader, for giving Totality a chance. I hope you enjoy it!
1. The Filament
The story is not a line
Nor is it a circle
It is a spiral, ascending the heavens
Toward perfection, or descending into
Hell, toward oblivion
Sometimes, both at once
-Melchior
Their hands are so cold, William thought to himself as the blue-skinned giants marched him slowly down the white corridor. The walls were smooth, free of grit or detail of any kind, yet the soft white glow emanating from the ceiling didn’t reveal any measure of shine or sheen; nothing like the gray matte that characterized most things built on Lexin. Slim budgets and stunted technological growth mandated the cheapest, most drab surroundings possible.
William guessed at just what his guards were. Frost giants, he figured, based on their blue skin, the chill that oddly surrounded them, their wordless, deliberate demeanor, wavy gray hair and stark white eyes with pinpoint pupils. William had trouble telling his two guards apart, and wondered if all frost giants (if that’s what they were) looked alike, or if these were merely brothers or twins. Is this the only job frost giants get to do? I imagine they’re quite good at it. No one’s getting out of an icy grip like this, shackles or no shackles, he thought. In William’s case, it was “shackles.” His captors took no chances, adorning him with a silver circlet that both crowned and neutralized him.
They led him to a door, though it would have been easy to miss since it was only slightly recessed into the wall and bore no markings or knobs. One of the giants touched it with a finger, making a curiously rapid and complex motion upon its surface, which William took to be some sort of sophisticated entry code. The door vanished and they led him inside, where he found a metallic chair linked to the floor by way of a thick pipe, with a flat, circular plate at the base instead of legs or wheels. It had no back, with arms made of thinner piping that had been bent into rectangular shapes and fused into the structure of the chair. The gaps between the arms allowed William to be shackled to the chair itself, which the giants quickly saw to.
Across from him sat a stern-looking young woman in a chair that did have a back. Her dark, closely shaven hair and deeply hued skin contrasted dramatically against the white that characterized everything else in the room, and her eyes made him want to shift around in his chair to escape her gaze. She was no stranger: she was Safiya Monroe, and not so long ago she had very nearly been a friend. Now, however, much more than a heavy, metallic table separated them.
William stole glances at the giants who flanked him, wondering if they were going to stick around for the whole interrogation. He almost didn’t notice the man standing behind Safiya, occupying the far left corner. The gentleman wore a black suit with a black tie over a white shirt. Sunglasses hid his eyes and the rest of his face betrayed no emotion. Either here for security or to report back to Safiya’s boss, William surmised.
For several long minutes Safiya simply stared at him, as if she could make him confess everything unbidden. Instead, William took his time checking out the room, more interested in how this building’s light sources worked than anything else. How do they pull off that strange glowing effect? his curiosity begged. He knew he wasn’t going anywhere and he had no intention of making this easy for his captors. He studied the ceiling, which gave off a soft white luminescence, not so bright that he would expect it to fill a room, but somehow it did. Even beneath the table, he could scarcely make out a shadow. Clever paint? Advanced polymers? Too bad I can’t ask. They wouldn’t tell me, he thought.
“William,” Safiya finally uttered, tapping her fingertips on the table. “You have a lot to answer for.”
If he could have, William would have crossed his arms in defiance, but he settled for gripping at the arms of the chair and leaning forward slightly. “Funny. I could say the same to you,” he countered. “Or at least to your boss.”
Safiya shot a pointed look up at the giant to William’s left, and immediately he tasted the back of a large blue hand. His cheek burned like someone held ice cubes against it. “So, you’re going to torture me?” he asked, trying to sound unconcerned.
“Officially? No. Torture is illegal.” She relaxed back into her seat. “Unofficially? I have been given wide discretion in this matter. Cooperation is in your best interest.”
William glanced at the giant who’d struck him, then back to Safiya. “I’d just like to point out that I was cooperating, up until your people decided I was an enemy of the state.”
“So you say. Shall I read the statement the one known as The Star Mother released this morning? I believe you know her as ‘Sasha.’” Not waiting for an answer, she tapped the table again, which cast an arrangement of holographic letters into the air above. She read aloud:
“To the Order, whose authority commands neither respect nor recognition:
“It has come to my attention that Earth and its colonies hold thousands of members of the Avalonian races in bondage. Having liberated millions of humans from enslavement by the Totality, my conscience demands that I hold the Order similarly accountable. To demonstrate my resolve, I have captured the personnel based at the Luna 2 facility and destroyed that outpost.
“Consequently, I put forth the following declaration: should the Order not acknowledge this message within the next 48 hours and present a plan for liberation of the enslaved Avalonians, there will be additional attacks on Earth. These attacks will increase in frequency and intensity the longer the Order ignores this demand. I have the means to make good on this threat. It would be best not to defy me.
“Consider this to be your one and only warning. Signed, Sasha 89652, The Star Mother.”
The words vanished. Safiya leveled her gaze at him again.
William turned up his hands as if to throw them up, pulling against his restraints. “What do you want from me? Like I said, we haven’t been in touch.”
“Yet you were close to her in the past. You expect me to believe you had no prior knowledge of this?”
“Yes. But I assume you won’t believe me no matter what I say.”
“I’ll be honest with you, then. This is your opportunity to confess. Describe how you came to know the so-called Star Mother, the nature of your association, and the events and actions that led you here. We will listen to your side of the story.”
“And what will you do with that? Decide whether I’m innocent or guilty? I’ve already been through your farce of a legal system.”
She rested her elbows on the table and clasped her hands. “The President has left your fate in my hands, and I’ve got nothing but time. I’m listening.”
Well, what could it hurt at this point? William tried to lean back, jerking uncomfortably as he remembered the chair had no back support. Straightening up, he sighed and began to speak.
“If we’re going back to the beginning, it started on Lexin...”
***
There came a moment each morning when William believed, however briefly, that there were beautiful things in this world. “This world” being Lexin, the planet of his birth—not that he’d seen much more of it than the sprawling city of Erzan. The moment came just at dawn, when the sun broke through the cloudy haze and set the entire sky aglow. The smog and pollution vanished, the drab gray architecture shimmered and glittered, and sometimes he had to cover his eyes from the brilliance of it. It lasted maybe a minute at the most, but to William it was often the most precious minute of the entire day.
On this particular day, he sat on the hood of a black car outside the headquarters of Minco Corporation, one of Lexin’s major mining conglomerates. Steve Marlin, his partner, was busy filling out paperwork in the unmarked vehicle they’d checked out from the motor pool earlier. He was wearing that damn cologne again, the one William hated—stinking up the car with his “Essence of Gold.” He must have a hot date tonight. Thus, William preferring the hood.
“You about done out there?” Steve grunted, looking up from his documents. He didn’t notice or care about beautiful mornings.
“Yeah,” William shrugged, bracing himself for the smell as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. “How are those reports coming?”
Steve gave him a cold stare. “If you really want to know, try doing them yourself sometime.”
“You know I hate paperwork.”
“I hate being the junior partner, myself,” Steve hissed, making meticulous marks all over the grid-like pages. “Maybe I’ll put in for a transfer.”
“Do it, then,” William snapped, not even bothering to look at him.
“I don’t need this, you know. I cou
William laughed and actually glanced over at him this time. “Oh, you want to tangle with the Dogs of Salt Coast now? Those guys would eat you for breakfast, throw you up, and have you again for lunch.”
“Beats this shithole,” Steve said.
“That’s what the tourist brochures say. I don’t buy it. You think the big guys aren’t just as much in charge over there as they are here? Hollard’s a Nytrolus city, if I’m not mistaken.”
“But it has beaches. Beaches, Will! No fucking beaches in this dump.”
William snorted. “I’m sure Hollard’s beaches are just as polluted as everywhere else.”
“Not in the brochure, man. Not in the brochure.”
William smirked and went back to surveillance—the real reason they were here. The stakeout was, of course, all William’s idea.
About a month back, an exotic dancer who called herself Rainbow was found strangled in one of the VIP rooms at the Goldhand. Nesto Marks, Minco’s Executive Vice President for Development, was known (but not on record) as a regular client, and William had heard from more than one shaken-up working girl that Mr. Marks had some strange tastes and a bit of a temper. In particular, he liked to be rough: scratches and bruises, some of the former requiring bandages. Up until now, the Militiamen hadn’t touched him, owing to his high status, and the fact that none of the women working at the Goldhand were willing to speak against him in court for fear of losing their jobs. For some of them, it was their sole livelihood. As for Marks, William didn’t care about the guy’s title or salary, all that concerned him was that he’d possibly done wrong and deserved to pay the price for it.
For the last two weeks, William and Steve had been watching Minco HQ, observing Mr. Marks’ comings and goings. They parked in front of a jewelry store, which didn’t open until 10, so they weren’t in anyone’s way. William had a rather solid feel for the man’s schedule by now, and it was simply a matter of waiting to see when the Vice President would give in to his baser urges and look somewhere other than his wife’s bed for satisfaction.
Their target arrived promptly at 8:03AM, dropped off by the same number 12 tram he always took: the yellow one with the streak of scratched paint below the driver’s window where someone had pulled their car up too close to the tracks. By the time the tram left, Marks was slipping through the revolving door at the base of the building. He normally took about thirty seconds to sign in at the reception desk, maybe a little more if he opted to chat up the intern, which he only did when it was a rare blonde one. Then, he went for coffee, which took a minute and ten seconds if the milk and sugar were in the right place. Finally, he took the elevator up to his office on the fifth floor, which took two minutes and twenty seconds.
Total time: four minutes, plus or minus 30 seconds.
“Five creds says his light comes on at 8:07 and 20 seconds. Give me a wiggle room of five seconds,” Steve wagered, holding out his hand, palm up.
“You’re on,” William agreed, slapping his partner’s hand. Easy fiver, he told himself.
Steve alternated between staring at his watch and looking up toward the fifth floor corner office where Marks spent his days, and sometimes nights. William watched, too, hoping Steve would be off by at least six seconds. The two of them waited in anxious silence.
Two minutes in, however, the silence was shattered.
An alarm went off at the jewelry store to their right, blaring loudly, just before a display pedestal came crashing through the front window from the inside and a man in a black hooded sweatshirt and gray pants jumped out.
William stuck his head out the car window. “Hey, you! Stop there!” The man quickly made them for Militiamen and found a little extra spring in his step as he sped off in the opposite direction.
Grunting, William started the car, never losing sight of the suspect with the bundle clutched under his right arm. Tossing it into the trunk of a car down the street, the thief slid with surprising speed into the driver’s seat and car sped off, accelerating rapidly.
“So much for that fiver,” he lamented, throwing on the sirens and opening up the throttle to give chase.
They barreled straight through Erzan’s business district, one of the few parts of the city where one wouldn’t typically expect to witness such a brazen crime. Soon, William was able to bring his car close enough for Steve to write down the ID tag emblazoned on the rear of the thief’s vehicle. Granted, it might be counterfeit, but it was always worth checking out.
“Indigo Garret Niner Eight Five Zed Three,” Steve read aloud, reaching for the microphone attached to their car’s radio to call it in.
Steve droned the details to dispatch, and almost immediately the on duty dispatcher’s voice crackled a response back to them. “Fox 31, 41-40 confirmed and logged. Vehicle tag is invalid, last reported by Minville three weeks ago. Another 41-40.”
A repeat offender, William surmised. Minville was eighty kilometers south of Erzan, so it was possible the driver trying to elude them didn’t know Erzan very well. Probably why he’s going in a straight line. He doesn’t know the layout of the city. This’ll be easy.
“Steve, call in a bird,” William suggested, although it was, in fact, an order. Steve complied, contacting dispatch once more and requesting an air unit.
Vehicular pursuit through the streets of Erzan was always a dicey prospect—the roads were too narrow, turns too sharp, and in a lot of places there were far too many pedestrians. In the direction they were headed, the chase would soon enter one of Erzan’s less affluent areas, the Redwater, where cars generally gave way to throngs of people buying and selling at curbside. Some of what they sold was legally obtained; much of it wasn’t. “Redwater” was not named for any nearby waterways, lakes, or oceans as Erzan had none of those, at least not of natural origin; it earned its name from the gang violence for which it was notorious. William remembered a saying from when he was a child, living there: “When the red water runs, you run, too.” Guess I never ran far enough, he mused.
The skyscrapers that characterized the downtown business area was soon behind them, not that William noticed; he kept his eyes fixed on the rear end of the vehicle they tailed, and his concentration on closing the distance between them. These chases weren’t an everyday occurrence, but they came frequently enough that people knew to get out of the way when they heard the sirens or saw the flashing lights of a Militiamen vehicle, and for that William was grateful. William realized they’d crossed into Redwater when they passed the intersection at Stone Street where the sidewalks suddenly went from pristine and level to cracked and pitted, almost as if they separated two different cities. The amount of activity around the street also increased, and William hoped none of those vending carts “accidentally” rolled into his path, which had happened to him a couple of times before. Just one enterprising citizen doing their part to thwart legitimate Militiamen from their work.
It didn’t happen this time, to his great relief, but as the pursuit continued William’s patience began to run thin. “Where’s that damn bird?” he demanded.
Steve clicked the mic again. “Dispatch, this is Fox 31, status on air unit?”
“Eagle 15 en route.”
“Guess we just have to wait,” Steve sighed.
“I’m going to have to go around,” William warned. “Once we get to Granite Street, I won’t be able to keep this pace up. The people should slow him down, though, unless he’s a complete psycho.”
“Let’s hope not.”
William made a quick right onto Fuller Street, intending to cut their target off a few streets down at Redwater’s northern boundary with Stillstown, where people with a bit more money and means settled and, true to the name of their neighborhood, didn’t make a whole lot of noise. First they had to cross Granite Street, so William cut left at Third Avenue, where the crowds were less dense. He slowed down, hoping the man they were chasing had to go even slower. If not, and there’s no air unit here, we’re screwed.
He pushed through the intersection at Granite Street, and out of the corner of his eye caught a flash of the street pole with the crosswalk sign on it standing right next to the building that used to be the old locksmith’s place until it burned down about eight years ago. It had been converted into a little apartment building since then: six units; small, cheap, and dirty. But back when it was a locksmith shop, the Granite Street Boys ran a fence out of the storeroom—the price they demanded of the owner, Mr. Randall, instead of simple protection money. Sometimes it had also served as their home base, when their other houses were too hot.
