Chapter 2

For three days I worked my seven hour shift inspecting computer parts as the factory spit them out. By the third night my brain had become an auditorium as I slumbered. Clipboards and microchips performed cabaret and I had front row seats.

The star that this space rock floated around was already setting by the end of my shift at Four-Thirty in the afternoon. ISo when I stepped out into the crowded streets it was already twilight. I pulled the collar of my coat, a long tailed coat with reflective material woven throughout it, close to my face.

I looked at one of the guards, “Excuse me. I've got a question.”

Through the gas mask he replied abruptly, “What do you want?”

“What do people here do for fun on Friday night?”

“Same crap they do back on Earth, go to the bar, go home, sleep, find a good screw. Take your pick. Get outta here, conman!”

So I faded into the sea of people. One thing I noticed was a lack of vehicles. There were cyber cars that served as taxis, and the skiff like vehicles the farmers used to bring in their goods and that was about it.

Across Grifter's End boomed the voice of the High Warden, the planet's version of a governor, “Good Afternoon citizens of our fine colony. You've all worked hard this week as always. To the recent transfers I say this: continue down the honest and righteous path and you'll be back Earthside before you know it.”

That was a joke. It wasn't that he wasn't sincere but rather that most people who got shipped here chose to stay; that's how this place was built to start with. I knew of people with two to five year sentences that had served them and never requested to return home. Now here I was myself having become an intergalactic jail bird.

The question I guess arises: was this really a jail anymore? I mean I was practically in the lap of luxury. This brought to mind all the criticism I'd ever heard about the justice system and how us convicts sometimes had it better than the average working man.

Another point could be made that we were now living the lives we should have been as honest American citizens. Whatever helped the folks back on Earth sleep better.

I didn't go back to my digs right away. I wandered aimlessly, a buffalo in a neon pasture and in this wandering I walked into this sector's tavern. The place was bright enough to agitate a thousand hangovers. Whoever was in charge here needed to learn about ambiance.

I sat at the bar and ordered a cider. The bartender was a stocky man of some girth. He had a well trimmed mustache and close cut, coal black hair. He had dark blue eyes that told me he was haunted by ghosts he'd never fully exorcize, those of his past. “Here you go.” he said with a well practiced smile as he slid me my pint glass.

It wasn't the best I'd tasted but it was far the worst. No doubt it had been imported from the Mother Planet at the maximum allocated expense for such things. “What's your story?" I asked him.

The smile faded as he recounted the story to me. “Vehicular manslaughter. I was driving under the influence and pancaked an entire family who had just left a restaurant.

“Justice was meted out swiftly and I was sentenced to life. Thus they shipped me up here and I was put to work here.”

“Around alcohol?”

“Let the punishment fit the crime. I'm reminded of my misdeeds with each drink I pour out to every downtrodden prisoner, every citizen, and every besotted Space Force lackey that comes through that door.”

“Those are mighty fancy words for a whiskey slinger.”

“I was an English teacher once…. before that night.”

We both didn't say much after that. I felt bad, having dredged up corpses from the lake of his memory. A hand gripped my shoulder and I heard someone say, “You're in my chair. That's not very skibidi of you.”

I unfortunately recognized that word and it caused disgust and vitriol to course through my entire being. It was slang used by that generation of youth who'd been raised by their electronic gadgets instead of their parents who had wanted all the sex and none of the responsibility of parenting.

I did the math and estimated this person to be in their late twenties as I had been when I had to listen to kids spew this trash lingo from their mouths. My generation had a term for it: brain rot.

I turned to face this young man(or whatever he fancied himself to be). “Look, kid I can tell you were raised without respect and manners but you are a prisoner here like us. You're not entitled to anything here. Find another chair.”

He spun me around and cussed me out. At this point I couldn't help myself. “Obviously you don't understand what I said because you were reading on a third grade level in Middle School. Find another chair.”

He pulled a knife on me and I dodged it and grabbed his wrist and twisted it. There came the sounds of dry twigs in summer and he screamed. “Gahhh! What the sigma?”

He glared at me. I glared back. “Allow me to speak to you in the only language you generation Alpha zombies could ever comprehend. You came in here thinking that you had some kind of ‘Ohio, W rizz’ and that made you an alpha.

“ That ‘rizz’ of yours was short for charisma. I've seen monkeys throwing poop in zoos that had more charisma than you had at thirteen and will ever have now.”

He retorted with the default comeback of his brainless generation. “Your mom!”

I balled my hand into a fist and my knuckles administered the sort of strict discipline this punk had never received from his parents or the public school system. I could feel his jaw when it broke. He hit the floor tiles writhing in pain. The bouncer, a man who looked like Stone Cold, dragged him by his shirt collar and tossed his butt out into the street from whence he had come. The bartender confiscated the knife and all was peaceful again.

I finished my drink with less enthusiasm. This incident reminded me why I hated going out for anything except groceries and errands. At least here my groceries were provided by the taxpayers of Earth & I had no errands.

I left that over-lit establishment as quickly as I'd entered. My every sense was alert just in case that “Gen Alpha” punk wanted a rematch. I took my place within the ocean of faces, scarred faces, faces missing an eye, faces that were twenty turned forty-five by drugs, the faces of men and women and some children etched by years of hard living and stupid choices; above them all on top of balconies or leaned against walls were the anonymous faces of the guardsmen.

I struggled to escape from the congested mass of jail bird colonists and turned into an alley. At last I could hear myself think, the only noises coming from the alley were my footfalls and the skittering of some native creature unseen in the shadows. Emerging onto another street I noticed the building on my left (one of the two that formed the alley) was very strange. It has been constructed of brick then painted a rather stygian black. A golden dome adorned the roof. The edifice also contained stained glass windows and steps led up to beautifully gilded doors above which hung a sign that read: Friends of the Emancipator of Souls.

I took note of the very oddball building & was continuing my journey when an old man sitting on the steps called to me. I acknowledged him and took in his every feature, wrinkles, a long beard down past his chest, black coat with matching hat and pants, and very mad eyes drained of sanity. “What can I do for you?” I asked.

“He's coming for us, you know? It'll be suddenly in the night, maybe even this night! He'll swoop down in a blazing chariot with an army of archangels.

“There‘sa going to be much fear and trembling as they raze this place with holy power but those of us who know him shall be liberated!”

The crazed sermon was given with much wild gesturing and those eyes became even more insane with each syllable.

“Whose coming?” I asked.

He looked frustrated and with a judgemental finger worthy of a boisterous televangelist he pointed and said “Him you, heathen ninny. The Great Emancipator!”

I followed the finger to a battered poster on the brick wall. I recognized the image instantly. It was a man with a slightly deformed face whose high cheekbones were framed by a jet black beard. The eyes were deep set and piercing but also friendly. If I had any smidgen of doubt it was annulled by the stovepipe top hat. The man on the poster was Abraham Lincoln. He stood on top of another figure, a fallen John Wilks Booth complete with a pointed tail and devil horns.

This was very surreal and strange. Had I traded Grifter's End for the Twilight Zone? I continued walking with the lunatic behind me crying out for me to repent. I made it back to my State funded domicile. Only once was I stopped by a patrolling guardsmen and asked about my business. I told the truth and he directed me back to the apartments.

It seemed there was far more to Grifter's End than met the eye. Something about that “church” put me on edge and I was actually grateful to be behind these walls. I stared out the singular window in the living space. If this place was a colony now why keep sending prisoners like me here? Of course self-sufficiency and cheap labor were the obvious answers along with the best answer of all: Politics. This space rock needed them and Gauntanamo didn't want them.