The French Quarter of Elysium city was one of the
first parts of the space colonies built. It was originally an arrival and
processing area that after the initial egress of the planet was no longer
required. For the first few years it was the home of many surviving residents
of the Southern United States and Mexico until the housing divisions were
finished for each city. It was then refitted and divided into four large
sections. One of the four sections remained as homes for those that owned or
operated businesses around this district. It was pretty plain for the most part
with a lot of ivy growing over lattice work; iron gates outside of the
townhouse homes.
Two
of the other sections were divided up for holding shops that specialized in
fashion and art, specialty food items and jewelry, everything other than the
necessities. The final quarter, the one with its street lights and buildings
done up in reds and purples to contrast against the dark painted walls and
festive greens and golds that hung from the balconies and banners around it,
held the majority of the entertainment businesses for the night life crowd. Bars,
clubs, adult film theatres and prostitution houses lined the streets in this
area and men and women stood outside of each giving their best efforts to
convince the passer-bys to come in.
The
White Tiger club was probably the biggest of its type in Elysium city. It had a
bright flashing white sign and a hand painted image of the creature it took its
name from behind it. There were other small random green and red lights that
littered the outside wall of the club that made it stand out. From the ground
level up close though, you could see the bouncers, standing by the doorway and
scrutinizing everyone who came up. They gave the men who wanted in a friendly
pat down before they entered and the few women got an even friendlier one. Closer
to the street though there were two girls who danced around the long poles of
the streetlamps topless, beckoning patrons to enter.
The
inside of the club was two stories with an oriental theme. White and pink
lights in long sheets lit up the bottom floor with greens and yellow bulbs
lining the second. The lights were blinding on the first floor with four stages
that the people were gathered around. The music that thumped through the
speakers had no lyrics, something made hastily on a computer for very cheap. The
music business had taken a hit since they had moved off of the planet. Turn the
bass on anything up loud enough though and drown it out, it’ll work for
background noise. The drinks were usually watered down and the food was almost
non-existent, but no one came for those things.
On
each of the four stages a new dancer appeared every hour. Their styles varied
and their costumes were personalized, a mixture of girls from different parts
of the world formerly, or other cities if they were really young. Working the
poles with precision the dancers moved to the rhythm that vibrated the walls.
Underneath the lights they entertained the men and women that came in after
work. Good entertainment was hard to find in these cities.
Nyx
was on stage one tonight and she was quite the draw. There were a few things
that made her stand out from the other girls and people took notice. She was an
exceptional dancer with a body that was not too thin or overly toned. Food was
harder to come by depending on your situation and most of it was processed meal
paste or military rations. Nyx’ extracurricular activities kept her in a bit
more money and better fed, as well as worked her body out. Her time down on
Earth also gave her something the majority of the other girls couldn’t easily
get, a tan. Nyx hadn’t been just kissed by the sun; they were quite intimate as
it were. Dangerous, sure, but she liked the feel of it compared to the coldness
she felt up here.
Flexible,
a compliment she had received often. She knew how to manipulate the pole and as
she put it to the other girls, move in waves as if you were water. She chalked
some of her expertise up to her practice in Tai Chi and gymnastics training. She
wished she had stuck with gymnastics more but when one teacher dies and the
next one keeps trying to touch you inappropriately, interest can be lost quickly.
The
tattoo on her back was a large mural of an ornate catholic cross with the
background of the full circular moon. It was detailed and had taken a few years
to get finished but it was her, her name meant night. She embraced it and the
symbol of the cross meant a lot to her and her faith. She wore a similar one
around her neck at all times, a gold cross on a silver chain, even when she
danced. The mural on her body looked good under the flashing lights, customers
always asked about it.
These
types of clubs had changed a lot since relocating to space. It was hard to
slide electronic credit singles into the garter belt or g-string of an
entertaining dancer. Instead, now there were a series of small ports patrons
could tip their favorites with. People were generally a little stingier now
though and more concerned about themselves, that’s where the second floor came
in.
Like
in the old days, the girls would walk around the floor of the club when they
weren’t dancing on stage. There was always the offer of the lap dance or
private table performance but with the military in control prostitution was a
hundred percent legal. They just taxed the hell out of it with the clubs. So
the clubs set up a second floor where men danced on one side and women on the
other, private performances that lead to negotiations. Once the arrangement was
made there were private rooms towards the back of the top floor that the girls
paid to use to make their money. You had to pay to get up to the top floor in
the first place though and going up there almost guaranteed you’d be spending
more money for something, even if you didn’t want to touch.
It
was a night like tonight that Nyx had decided she was in the mood to take
Gerald upstairs. He was a repeat customer, hell she knew all of them, but he
was a good customer. He had even worn a tie tonight with the old pale blue
jacket and the bushy mustache that accented his boy like smile. Her bosses
harassed her when she didn’t do this part enough but she had built up enough of
a reputation as a ‘draw’ in the club that she could tell them to fuck off from
time to time. She wasn’t proud of it but it was work and next to hunting or a
nice government job it was some of the best credits you could make. She knew
exactly what Gerald wanted and their exchange was little more than two
sentences.
“Usual
price okay, honey,” she asked as she plopped into his lap in the dark red chair
in the private room.
He
had been undressing her with his eyes, a task that wasn’t hard since all she
was wearing was a dark green bikini and grey boots with fur on them.
“Sounds
good,” Gerald said with a big smile as he placed a large calloused hand on her
bare thigh. “You’re too good to me, Nyx, you know that?”
“Or,”
she proposed as she ran a thumb gently over his cheek, “you just may be too
hard on yourself there, big guy.”
She
kissed him softly for a long moment, suckling on his bottom lip before sliding
off of his lap. She smiled and extended her hand, palm face up. She coyly bit
the fingernail on her other hand as she waited. The man pulled out the small
device that looked like an electronic drive with a small disk at the end, a
virtual wallet, everyone had one here. Nyx took it from him and went to a small
black table that held an electronic device that she swiped it under. It was out
of the way in the small dark room with the dim red lights and padded walls, so
the customer wouldn’t be thinking about how much they were spending. When the
dim blue light flashed she punched in a series of numbers on the keypad and
smiled at Gerald, handing it back to him.
She
resumed her position back on his lap. Instead of simply plopping down though,
she wrapped an arm around his neck and slid in a bit more seductively. She
kissed his neck as her left hand tugged at the string to her bikini top. She
threw the dark green fabric to the couch across from them, revealing her
breasts to him. Part of why Gerald liked Nyx was because her breasts were nice
and round as well as the cute dark nipples on them being erect from the cold of
the space station and as tanned as the rest of her body. He gently placed a hand on one of them and
then slid it down her flat stomach over the belly button piercing she had. She
kissed the side of his face then nibbled on his ear as she felt the fingers
push between flesh and fabric, lifting up the last piece of clothing she had on
and slowly sliding underneath them between her legs.
Nyx
sighed contently, head moving to lean back on his shoulder. Her hand ran down
his chest. She relaxed a bit, knowing he’d be content for a few minutes as he
had his fun. She was exhausted as she lay there on Gerald, conserving her
energy for what was to come. Coming back from the hunting trips always meant
that she’d be tired for the next couple of days but she couldn’t lie to
herself. She already wanted to get out of here, to get back to the dangerous
warzone for some reason. She wondered why she liked it better than the safety
of space.
In
the midst of these thoughts and the act of moving her hips slightly against
Gerald’s hand she almost didn’t hear the sound of the doorknob moving. It was
locked. Whoever it was would get the idea that the room was occupied and go
onto another one. The noise came again though with the metal scraping against
metal sound a little bit tougher this time. Nyx shot up awkwardly, away from
Gerald and his playful hand. He looked stunned and was still sitting as the
door was forcefully pushed open. Nyx threw an arm up over her breasts to cover
them, barely having time to do that.
Two
men in gray and black military fatigues stood at the door with guns attached to
their belts and the first with a flashlight he was shining at her, then Gerald.
The marine motioned out the door behind his partner with the light as he looked
at Gerald.
“You,
out,” the officer’s voice was serious.
Gerald
obliged him after shooting a glance at Nyx. She figured if he could have spoken
to her he’d have said he was sorry, but he hoped she would be okay. The marines
weren’t like the guards though. You didn’t want to test them. Gerald was out of
the room by the time Nyx turned around and picked up her top. With her back to
the men, she replaced it quickly.
By
the time she had turned back to them the marine with the flash light had closed
the distance and had an outstretched hand towards her that held a small digital
pad on it. She paused for a moment, realizing she could cross out a few of the
reasons to why she thought they were here. She took the pad in her hand and
looked it over. With an eyebrow raised in confusion she briefly scanned the
electronic document that came up at her touch. The words all made since but the
usual jargon was there which caused her to have to re-read a couple of parts.
It didn’t really sink in though until she scrolled down. On the last page at
the bottom of the document was the emblem of the large bird in gold and black,
the seal of the president.
The
security office for the French Quarter was like any of the other government
built buildings, grey and dull with large walls around it. This particular one
was nestled in between two rail bridges which caused an almost constant humming
sound. The machinery for the defense systems added their own buzzing sound to
the noise surrounding the building, much like the bright lights that lit up the
area around the walls of the security office though, the noise was only heard
when they were actually working.
Bronson
stepped from the darkness of the French Quarter streets into the bright blue of
the flood lights. Bronson nodded to the guard in the small box-like station and
was preparing to go in until he heard a voice call after him.
“Bronson,
hey man!”
Pausing,
Bronson looked up at the scraggly-haired individual who was coming from the
darkened street and into the light with a panicked look on his face.
“Cletus.”
“Bronson,
Bro, come on man. I need some help.” Cletus spoke quickly and with furious hand
gestures. “I need some credits man or Tiger Mike’s going to fucking kill me
dude. You’ve got to help me man.” His eyes were bloodshot and pleading. His
hand was already shaking as he held out his credit drive for his money.
“Cletus,
you’re using again.”
“No
man, no. The hell man, you-you know I wouldn’t start that shit again after what
it did to me.” He almost sounded convincing. “After I got the job at the plant
and you helped me out, I wouldn’t do that to you man.”
“Cletus,”
Bronson said his name louder to quiet him. “I told you six weeks ago that Tiger
Mike was killed in the raid. You’re just back into your bad habit.”
There
was a sobering moment of silence as Cletus’ head dropped and synapses slowly
fired that he had been ignoring. He only looked back up when he felt Bronson’s
grip around his forearm. Cletus looked up with tears in his eyes as his body
shook.
“Come
on, we’ll get you cleaned up.”
Bronson
nodded to the guard and the red laser fence at the entrance to the walls
dropped. The two men entered the complex as it came back up and the building
shook while the two rail cars passed by overhead.
After
Cletus was put into the detox cell and Bronson finished the paperwork he was
finally able to stow his gear in the locker room, a sure sign of what kind of
night it would be at work. He was on desk for the first two hours. He still
checked his weapon once again and looked over the board to see what he had
missed while he had been gone back on Earth.
“You
hear what those koala-fuckers did this time?”
Opie
Pascal had come in behind him with a grin on his face as he finished off a
nutrient bar and missed the trashcan with the balled up wrapper.
“No,
I didn’t.”
“Those
Aussie pricks aren’t going to let us send any more people their way, they’re
closing off their borders. Hell, the brass says they may stop sending us
supplies next. They’re pissing off all of the cities. Valhalla and Mandarin
city are both pushing to go to war over this shit.”
Bronson
paused and mulled over the information for a minute as Opie grabbed a watered
down soda from the fridge.
“I
just don’t get it man. They’ve gone native.”
“They
were the only ones that weren’t infected. They were smart and shut the borders off
before it could get over there.” Bronson answered him in an informative manner
as if Opie didn’t already know the reason. The other officer scoffed as his
soda opened with a pop.
“They
were too chicken shit scared to come up here and now they think we’re going to
infect them by coming back down or something? I don’t get it.” He kicked the
chair out from under the table to sit on it. “I think we should go down there.
Take that place over, grow our own shit. It’s our damn right; most of us are
from Earth originally.”
“Riots
still going on in Cairo City,” Bronson asked, changing the subject.
“Nah,”
Opie said pulling up an electronic pad to read the news. “They got that shit
handled, I knew they would.”
Bronson
simply nodded to his fellow guard and excused himself, heading out of the room.
Opie was just one of the many men that he felt didn’t deserve to be a guard. In
truth they were bullies or hate-filled individuals who wanted the power and
authority that came with the shield. The ability to carry a weapon when others
couldn’t and to make people respect you because of how hard you could make
their lives here appealed to people like Opie Pascal. They had to have a talk
with him about using his position to stalk his ex-girlfriend a couple of times.
Bronson
took his job seriously, and the oath he swore was to protect not harass. He
headed to the front of the building to the desk. There he’d spend a couple of
hours watching the monitoring boards and answering calls. Other officers came
in and out of the building and spoke to him or discussed reports they were
handing in. He fielded several information calls and put out a few dispatches
of reports to different locations outside of the French Quarter. It wasn’t
until his time at the desk was almost up that he got the domestic abuse call.
The
buzzer went off and the address scrolled across the small screen in a sickly
green text. Bronson stood and straightened his uniform before he checked his
pistol for the fourth time that night. Opie was heading towards the desk as
Bronson headed out.
“I’m
answering the 414 before I start my patrol. Everyone else is handling something
else.”
“Okay,”
he said as he set his ass down in the chair where it would spend the rest of
the night. “Yeah I’m good.”
“You’ve
got the desk for the rest of the night,” He stated the obvious to Opie to make
sure he did his job. Something that he hated he had to do to feel better about
leaving him alone there.
He
nodded to the man in the guard hut as the laser fence came back on behind him. Double
checking the address on his electronic palm he turned to the left and headed
towards the apartment buildings the business owners and their families stayed
in. The street was quiet tonight for the most part as he passed by the
different colored buildings. He took a glance towards the White Tiger and the
other clubs. He knew Nyx was at work tonight and still needed to pass off her
part of the credits to her. Bronson wasn’t a fan of going into those
establishments though unless there was a reason for him to be there, especially
while he was in uniform.
He
was two streets away from the address and the possibilities of the scenario
began running through his mind. Nothing he hadn’t dealt with before but the
spats of jealous lovers can sometimes turn unintentionally violent. When two
people are in a heated argument, you arrive suddenly to break it up. You are
the new aggressor and the focus of their anger. It didn’t matter. He was always
cautious and would judge the situation once he got there. He was already
planning out the route he would take for his patrols tonight. He liked to
change things up so that he didn’t become predictable.
Turning
on to Kings Rd. he realized that he was being followed. It wasn’t uncommon to
see two soldiers walking the normal beat down here with the guards, but there
were usually circumstances behind it. The late hour made it odd as well.
Bronson eyed them for a moment as his hand moved slowly to his side. They were
both carrying weapons; one of them had a scoped assault rifle slung over his
shoulder.
“Officer
Bronson,” one of the men called out when it was obvious that they had been
spotted.
The
three men stood almost alone on the windy street eyeing each other. Bronson
nodded and glanced down at his badge, letting them know they could check it. He
felt uncomfortable though and his hand didn’t move from where it was as the
other came to rest on his hip.
“This
is for you,” the soldier in the hat said, outstretching a hand with the small
electronic pad in it. There was a smug expression that stood out to Bronson.
“You
mind,” he asked, pointing down to his own badge around his neck.
The
two marines glanced at each other as if this was unusual. They both reached for
the chains around their necks and pulled out the metal badges that hung around
them. Bronson took out the PDA device from his belt and after running a thumb
across the screen a green light emerged that he ran over the barcodes on their
badges. Each one gave him a polite tone of acceptance. When he was done he
simply nodded and took the data pad that the man had offered him.
His
eyes scanned over the same document and symbol at the bottom that Nyx’ had not
long before. He read parts of it again. Handing it back to the soldier he
folded his arms in front of him.
“I
understand,” Bronson acknowledged to them. “Currently I am on a distress call
but I’ll go to his office as soon as I’m off shift.”
“That
won’t be necessary officer. Someone else has already been dispatched for that
call. Your presence in the President’s office is required sooner rather than
later. We can take you straight there.”
Nodding
to the two soldiers he felt that familiar sinking sensation he didn’t like
starting up again in his stomach.
