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One day, I waited until two cars pulled up at the same time to get gasoline, and while Tanner attended the cars, I slipped into the garage and set up my dust cameras around the shop. I video logged everything, and with some modifications to the guard’s helmet and a cheap camera, I converted the recorded images into still, black and white photographs. I learned a lot of things. First, when a town vehicle needed service, Tanner would do a quick inspection, and often nothing more. He’d look it over, and if everything looked alright, he’d just leave it to sit for a day or two. Eventually, someone would pick up the car and be presented with an invoice for about three hundred dollars, already marked “paid by town treasury dept.” I also learned something else about Mr. Tanner. He had an unusual set of interests. He and Ms. Holmes did things with shop tools that would most likely void their warranties, all inside the shop and often in the back of the vehicle he should have been working on. I had my first story, complete with pictures of invoices and the couple in compromising positions.

  The town library had a typewriter they let me use to write my exposé. I told the librarian, Mrs. Lewis, that I like to write home to family, and she let me work mostly without interruption; that is when she didn’t ask about my family, what I wrote, where I stayed, what I had for breakfast, if I liked coffee, the music I enjoyed, if I listened to a certain radio program, and so on. I hated that primitive torture device known as a typewriter. Completely manual, you had to hammer each key to make a single letter. I had to think in this new language to write in it, and the more I thought, the harder it seemed to get the spelling right. My implant would heat up; I’d get a headache and work for hours to have two pages written. I left out key information - just blanked it out and added numbers where the names, dates, and pictures went. I added a note saying ’send a check written to cash to my PO box to get the corresponding list of information for those numbers, pictures etc.”

  I signed it Noire LaPlume and mailed it. A few days later, I found a check with a note: ‘This better be worth it, or I will track you down, Ms. LaPlume.’

  Apparently, the editor believed Noire to be woman’s name. I had no issue with that. Before the paper came out, I made a point to retrieve all my dust cameras and prepare for my next story. I would make my mark in this little town!

  Time went on, as it tends to do. I made some money here and there, and the name Noire LaPlume got noticed. I exposed various people and unfair practices ranging from price fixing of livestock futures to unsafe work conditions being ignored by employers. My pen name started to receive mentions in letters to the editor. For the most part, the public loved Noire. As my exposés continued, I improved on the primitive typewriter and even helped Mrs. Lewis type up library cards as a form of payment. I made one for myself; my first step toward gaining identification. I started to write flamboyantly and demand more pay. Soon, I made a good living, but cashing my checks grew troublesome. A check from the newspaper written to “cash” piqued people’s interests, and as they approached two hundred dollars at a time, the bank tellers started to ask, “Where did you get this check?”

  Then one day, I received a short and direct letter in my post box from Charleston, the capital city: ‘Noire, come see us and bring this letter when you want to make some real money. I had to pay handsomely to get this address, and there’s more where that came from, if you’ve got the skills I think you do.” Printed on Gazette stationary, signed by a Mr. Brown, and gave me the address.

  This is my big break on Earth. But do I dare follow up on it?

  I walked through the little town I had grown used to, my feet seeming to know the path, leaving my mind to go from one idea to another, and oddly my thoughts rarely went back to the Empire. This town had become normal to me, and I knew what smells to expect from each section. I smelled the scent of freshly baked bread from the bakery, and it always seemed to bring a smile to my face. I found something wholesome and honest about bread; a sense of well-being that accompanied it. As I moved on, I smelled machinery; oil and hot metal, the scent of ozone from simple electric motors working. Even those smells seemed more real than those of the Empire; the Empire being so sanitary, programmed, and far away.

  As I walked past the barbershop, I spotted a mirror in the window, with a small sign that read, ‘Do you look your best today?’.

  My mind wondered to the letter I had received and if I could respond when it occurred to me that I did not look my best. My hair grew a little too long compared to expectations around here. So I stepped inside, to a waft of aftershave and blue sanitizing fluid.

  “There’s a man that needs a haircut!” Phil, the barber, said as his eyes caught me at the door. “Come in, have a seat, I’ll be with you shortly.”

  Phil stood about five feet tall, plump but not obese. He wore a smile almost too big for his face, and opposing his receding hairline I saw sideburns that nearly went to his chin. He wore small glasses, low on his nose that usually pinched and caused him to have a nasal twang. He cut the hair of an older man. He faced the back wall, but his voice carried through the shop.

  “So, where were we?” the man said. “Oh, yeah, I was on shore leave in Singapore with this fella’ named Cam—”

  “Singapore? I thought the Japs occupied Singapore. You’re full of crap, Norm,” Phil said.

  “This was in forty-seven. They tucked tail and ran away by then. I stayed on, remember? I told you that. Anyway, Cam was a sailor in the classic sense of the word. On shore leave, he looked for booze and women, and that was the usual order. He’d get liquored up, and end up in bed with some hooker. He’d come back to the ship, see the doctor, and get shot up with penicillin, good to go for the next shore leave. So there we were, in Singapore, and Cam was drunk to the point of being everybody’s loud buddy. He bought drinks and bragged to the whole world about whatever he thought he could do better than the next guy. So he starts rattling about sex and how he needed some nooky. Along comes this skinny young thing. Said her name was ‘Aqua’, and she wore a skin-tight dress. I knew something wasn’t right about her right away, but the booze goggles worked on Cam. Anyway, this Singapore whore says something like, ‘Hey round-eye Sailor Joe, five dollar make you holler.’

  “Cam was up on his feet in a heartbeat, digging into his wallet for a fiver. I grabbed his arm and told him to be careful. He pushed my arm away and grabbed Aqua’s arm. They headed off to some back room, and I heard them wrestling around a bit and it sounded like things turned hot and heavy. But apparently, she wouldn’t take her dress off. She wanted to take care of Cam without getting undressed. So she’s working him with her mouth and one hand, and he keeps running his hand up her leg. She keeps batting his hand away, every time until he reached the point of no return. He hits his climax and just at that moment, he pushes her hand away and reaches all the way up her skirt. He grabs a handful of man-junk!”

  I snorted out loud, “Snert!”

  “Swear to God. Cam grabs a hold and he’s in shock. He starts screaming and clinches his grip as tight as he can. This Singapore lady-boy lets out a wail of a scream in falsetto. They’re both screaming, lady-boy breaks loose, and puts a stiletto dagger against Cam’s throat. ‘Chee-bye! I say five dollar make you holler! You make me holler too. Now you give me twenty dollar, you son-bitch, or I stick you.’ Cam doesn’t have 20 dollars in his wallet, and he starts calling for me.”

  “What did you do, Norm?” Phil said. Just about then, I noticed that his shears moved, but he wasn’t cutting any hair.

  “I had eight dollars left and Cam had seven and a few coins. We dumped our wallets and pockets, and said ‘that’s all we got.’ Lady-boy lowered the dagger, grabbed the cash, and ran off.”

  “What did Cam do?”

  “The experience messed him up, bad. He had performance issues for a while. Couldn’t decide if he was straight or queer, drank a lot, and finally took a dive from a hotel balcony into a parking lot. He landed on a car, broke his hip and wrist, got a medical discharge, and moved to San Diego. Haven’t heard from
him since.”

  Phil removed the man’s cape and snapped it loudly, signaling his work complete, saying, “Norm, you’ve always got the best stories. You’re done. Let’s let this gentleman get his hair cut.”

  “Yeah, I probably need to be getting home. The old lady will think I’ve been hanging out at the pool hall if I stay too long. Never did get that. What’s wrong with shooting some eight ball?”

  “It’s the gambling, Norm. You always lose,” Phil said.

  “Hmm. Maybe you’re right. I’ll have to work on that.”

  I took the seat and Phil started to cut my hair. He didn’t ask how I wanted it, he simply got started cutting. “Norm tells quite a story. You believe him?”

  “He did say that Cam was drunk. I would have to be really drunk to not know it was a guy. Seriously drunk!” I said. “Then I’d need to decontaminate!”

  “Decontaminate! I like that. A normal fella’ just knows. Cam must have had tendencies toward boys to begin with. That’s what I think.” Phil motioned with three curling fingers for me to lean forward.

  “That’s a position I guarantee I’ll never be in. Only real women for me.” I pointed toward my sideburns, “Straight across, right about here.”

  Phil finished my haircut and we chit-chatted about the weather and some stories that Noire LaPlume had written and how bad the little town had turned in the last twenty years or so. When he finished, I paid and gave him a nice tip, and went on my way. I hadn’t gotten a block away before I heard a familiar voice.

  “There you are!” Moe called, gasping for breath.

  He looked like he had been moving as fast as his tired legs would take him. “Gina’s looking for you. It’s her Grampa Lyle. He’s sick, real sick; she thinks he’s dying. He wants to see you.”

  “Me? Why does he want to see me?”

  “I don’t know. She went to the hospital and asked me to find you and send you there.”

  “Thanks Moe, er Jacob.”

  “Just call me Moe. I’ve gotten used to it. Now go. See Lyle.”

  I made my way to the hospital as quickly as I could, asking at the information desk where to find Lyle. The lady directed me to his room, and I breathed a deep sigh as I walked in. Gina caught me at the door and motioned me out.

  “I’m glad you made it.” Her eyes sad and reddened, and I smelled tears as she talked; there’s just a certain scent that you get when someone’s been crying. “The doctor needs to make an adjustment to his drainage tube. We need to leave him alone for a few minutes.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked. What a dumb question. Of course she’s not okay.

  “It’s just like losing Mom all over again. It’s so unfair!” Gina sobbed and leaned her head against my chest. “Why? Why? Why?”

  “It’s just the way things happen. I don’t think there’s a reason.”

  “But it’s not fair.” She made a fist and pounded it lightly against my chest. “It’s not fair. I was fourteen when Mom died. They said she had cancer in her breasts, and only if she had noticed it earlier, they might have been able to operate.”

  “Operate?!” I said, with more surprise than intended. My mind raced. Cancer is no big deal in the Empire. They inject you with smart nanobots as a child and then throughout your life when a cancerous cell is found, the ‘bots notify Medcom™, and at your next checkup, the doctor gives you an injection of H.K. ‘bots. The Hunter Killers are equipped with tiny pumps and injectors. They find a cancerous cell, stick the injector into its nucleus, then pump fluid into it until it pops, killing the cell and helping your natural defenses get a sense of what to fight. The average person in the Empire has millions of nanobots inside them, doing maintenance work and repairs. This is why we live so much longer.

  “They couldn’t operate on her. They did X-rays and blood tests. The cancer had already spread. She died in a pain-controlled, medicated haze. At the end, she didn’t even know who I was. She thought I was her sister.” Gina sobbed harder, her words sounded choppy as she worked to breathe around her crying. “I tried to tell her she was my Mom, but she couldn’t, she didn’t understand. I held her hand and stroked her hair when she’d moan. Everyone I love leaves me. Swear you won‘t leave me, Raka, swear it.”

  “I am so sorry.” I held her tighter than I had ever squeezed anyone. “I wish there was something I could do.”

  “Don’t leave me, please.”

  I didn’t know how to react. I just held her close and said, “I won’t leave you. You are my universe now. Besides, I don’t have anywhere else to go.” What a stupid thing to say.

  “Just go see Lyle. He calls for you and wants to talk to you alone. Please, Raka, do this for me.”

  “I will. As soon as the doctor leaves the room, I’ll talk to him.”

  We started walking back toward Lyle’s room when we heard a horrible scream come from the room.

  Gina sobbed. “I can’t do this again.”

  “It’s okay. Go to the waiting room; I’ll stay with him for a while.”

  Gina kissed me on the cheek and turned away, walking and snuffling as she left. I peeked into the room and saw the doctor looking at a chart. Primitive equipment beeped and whirred, fluids dripping into a tube in his arm, and a bigger tube draining from under his sheet, into a container at the side of the bed. The doctor saw me at the door and nodded.

  “You’re going to be fine, Lyle. I think your friend is here to see you.”

  He turned toward me, took several steps and whispered in my ear, “He won’t make it through the night. Pancreatic cancer. Nothing we can do.”

  I took a deep breath as the doctor left the room. “You hear that Lyle? You’re going to be fine.”

  “Don’t be shittin’ me,” he coughed and gagged. “I’m dying and I know it.”

  “Nah. You’ll be flirting with the nurses next week,” I said.

  “Listen, Raka. I feel the veil coming down. I need to know some things, and you need to tell me the truth. Swear it, nothing but the truth. Make it a dying man’s last wish.”

  “I swear.”

  “Gina says you’re an angel. Are you?”

  “Far from it. I’m just a man from a long way away.”

  “I figured. You ain’t from Sweden though, are ya?”

  “No sir.”

  Lyle tried to scoot up in his bed and put his ear closer to me. “Where are you from?”

  “Somewhere you’ve never heard of.”

  “Dammit, Raka, don’t give me this bullshit. Where are you from?!”

  “I was born on Lengoria. It’s one of the twenty-seven planets in the Galactic Empire. Lengoria is famous throughout the galaxy for the finest smart crystal growing industry, and we have a crop; it’s a type of grain that has a flavor not found elsewhere in the galaxy. It’s an acquired taste, but once you had it a few times, you’ll crave it.”

  “So you’re not from Earth?”

  “No.”

  “And there are twenty-seven worlds in the Empire. I’m guessing Earth is one of them?”

  “No.”

  “So there are twenty-seven other worlds out there?”

  “At least. Earth and a few other planets are outside of the Empire’s realm of influence. I don’t know how many others there are.”

  Lyle’s eyes turned upward for a moment, then he said, “If you are from another planet, why do you look so human?”

  “We’re all the same. All the planets were seeded from the same stock.”

  “You found any aliens? Bug-eyed monsters or little green critters?”

  “The galaxy is full of life. But intelligent life hasn’t been found yet, other than us. Sometimes I wonder about us.”

  Lyle closed his eyes and smiled. “I’m going to close my eyes for a few minutes. Please go on. Tell me everything.”

  “We have ships that travel faster than light. It’s a time warping method, pausing time briefly to make the ship travel faster than what should be possible. The twenty-seven worlds are supposed to be all eq
ual, but there is more power at the capital world. It’s called Thalodore. The Emperor lives there when he’s not cruising around on his star cruiser, partying. He threw some parties, I tell you. In fact, one of those parties is what got me here.” I smiled briefly, looked at Lyle,to confirm he still breathed. I continued, “We are far more advanced than Earth, clearly, and everyday things for us are like miracles here. Nobody there dies from cancer.”

  Lyle’s voice cracked and he didn’t open his eyes. “Is that why you’re here? To save us?”

  “No. I’m here by accident.”

  Lyle groaned. “But you will save us.”

  “Save you from what?”

  “It sounds like you’ll have to save us from your Empire. If we’re not part of them, then we’re against them. That’s the way things go. I’ve seen war.”

  “I never really thought about it. They consider Earth a ‘barbarian’ world, not really worth paying attention to.”

  “But now we got us the bomb. That makes us a threat.” The heart monitoring machine went into alarm. “You have to be the one, Raka, the one to save us. For Gina and for all—” He gasped for air, the alarm grew so loud it hurt my head. “Save us.” Lyle took his last breath, and his eyes fluttered.

  The doctor came back into the room and grabbed Lyle’s wrist, checking for a pulse. He checked the various machines and started to pound on Lyle’s chest. I touched his arm, and without a word, we nodded at each other. He sighed and retrieved the chart from the end of the bed, pulling a black pen from his coat pocket, and taking notes. Then, with a flourish, he signed his name, leaving an illegible but unique mark at the bottom of the page.

  Chapter 10

  Binge and Purge

  Imperial Inquisition # HTE563991A

  Transcription by Transcripton™ Ultracomputer.

  Commentary and descriptions in accordance with SmartScript intergalactic standards.

  “I don’t understand why we’re here,” Lieutenant Denton Morrow said, his voice cracking. He wore a prisoner’s uniform, his face covered with unkempt stubble, and his eyes bloodshot. “I’ve already told you everything. What else do you want from me?”