The Nexus Series: Books 1-3
Read The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 Online
Authors: J. Kraft Mitchell
THE NEXUS SERIES
Books 1-3
J. Kraft Mitchell
Copyright
© 2012, 2014 by J. Kraft Mitchell
All
rights reserved.
No
part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
prior written permission of the author.
CONTENTS:
Episode
3:
Beyond the Dark Star
.
362
Episode 3: Welcome to
Earth
.
625
To
the youth at Calvary
—
past, present and future. Always remember you
are a part of something much bigger than yourselves.
THANK
YOU:
Becky and Emil,
my go-to people for all things sci-fi.
Mom and Dad, for
not saying it’s silly of me to want to be a novelist (which it is).
Pastor Tom, for
already calling me a writer even when I wasn’t.
The Wednesday
night Bible study guys, for the support and the prayers.
Albert and the
Diedrichs
, for the pointers.
Hannah, my
biggest fan and my best critic.
The Offer
WATCH
for the light,
the man on the phone had said.
So Jill
watched. She watched from an alley across the street while the rain
poured down her face in little snaking streams. The light would come, she
knew. Any moment it would appear in the window three stories up the old
brick building. When a client on the phone said something would happen,
it happened. People didn’t hire someone like Jill unless they’d already
made sure of the details of their plan.
She kept
watching. Rain kept falling. Drops sparkled for an instant whenever
they fell past the amber streetlamps. No other light shone from anywhere
on this block. Over the rooftops the skyscrapers along the Avenue of
Towers glittered in the distance. But here there was no traffic, no night
life, no sound except the far off hum of downtown and the pattering of the
rain. It was just one of the floating city’s outer neighborhoods that had
been abandoned.
Then a square of
gold appeared with a flicker. It was a light in the window Jill was
watching.
Jill’s heart beat
faster. The errand was starting. You always got a nameless feeling
when an errand started. It was something like fear, something like
excitement, something like pride—but different than all those things. The
feeling was good, Jill told herself. It gave her the drive and the focus
to do her job. And no one could do better at this sort of job than Jill
could. She pushed stray rain-soaked locks of black hair away from her
dark eyes and crossed the empty street.
Don’t enter
the building until the light turns on
, the man on the phone had said.
Once you’re inside, enter no room but the room with the light
.
She walked up the
stairs to the front door of the building. If it had a lock it was broken;
it opened easily. Light from the streetlamps threw amber patterns across
the stairs in front of her. The creaky steps went up and doubled back,
went up and doubled back again.
Down the narrow
third floor hall she saw a line of light beneath one of the doors.
She went into the
room. It had no furniture except a table. A single lamp stood over
it, and a small cardboard box sat on it. The box was plain and unmarked
like the man on the phone had said it would be.
She grabbed the
box and left in a hurry.
A
man
with a long coat and brimmed hat stood in a dark, empty room. The room
was on the ninety-ninth floor of the Trans-Spatial Communications building
downtown. He looked out the window at the countless lights of the city.
Metropolitan
Satellite IX
. That was the original name of the city. Some
called it MS9 for short. But to the million or so people who called it
home, the floating city was known as Anterra.
The air was hazy
with the rain. It wasn’t real rain, exactly. Down on Earth real
rain fell from rainclouds that formed naturally in the atmosphere. Here
on Anterra, rainfall was manufactured by the Climate Control Center as often as
the citizens voted for it.
He waited.
It was quite a
view from the ninety-ninth floor window. The man saw the other
skyscrapers along the Avenue of Towers. Then there were the high-rise
apartment buildings and offices of downtown. Then the stone-pillared
buildings of the financial district along the lakeshore. Beyond all this
spread the patchwork of neighborhoods that surrounded the downtown area and the
lake. From this vantage point the man could see all the way to the
rim—the edge of the satellite, outside the city limits.
And beyond the
rim, even
through
the rain and the haze, he could see
the Home Planet.
Earth. At
this time of night it was a huge semicircle of shadow, like a massive, dark sun
half-risen over Anterra’s horizon. All that could be seen on its surface
were the faint glows from the largest cities in that region of the globe.
Funny how
things turned out
, the man thought to himself.
The floating city
had been designed by the United Space Programs. Their goal had been
simple: to create a better place for humanity, a place free of the crime and
corruption of Earth’s societies.
The first eight
metropolitan satellites were experimental. Finally, after years of labor,
the United Space Programs built
Metropolitan Satellite IX
, history’s
first human society outside Planet Earth.
More than eighty
million people applied for citizenship. In the end, just over one
percent were selected. They were the best of the best humanity had to
offer. They were educated—plenty of engineers, professors, doctors and
lawyers. They were people of integrity, with not so much as a minor
traffic violation on any of their records. They had passed strenuous
psychological examinations to ensure that they had no violent or dishonorable
tendencies. They had undergone careful interviews to confirm that they
would be devoted to the good of their new society.
Basically, they
were the perfect citizens. Perfect citizens for a perfect society.
...Or so the
United Space Programs had said.
In almost no time
at all, corruption tainted the floating city just as it tainted the cities on
the Home Planet. Now, almost a century after its founding, Anterra had a
massive, thriving criminal underground.
Funny
, the
man thought to himself again,
how things turned out
.
“Director,” a
voice crackled in his earpiece, interrupting his thoughts.
He touched a tiny
button on the lapel of his coat. “Go ahead,” he said. His accent
was something like the British back on Earth.
“Sherlock just
told me the sensor went off. The package has been picked up. She’s
on her way.”
“Excellent.”
“You sure you
don’t want us to arrest her right away?”
“No. Keep it
simple and wait until she’s at the drop point. Let’s witness the whole
job. That will mean more leverage for us once she’s in our hands.”
“Whatever you
say, sir. She’ll probably be at the TSC building within the hour.”
“We’ll be
ready.” The man turned away from the window, faced the dark room, and
waited. “As ready as we can be,” he added quietly to himself.
JILL
never thought of checking inside the box. She didn’t know what was in
there, and she didn’t want to. She didn’t think of who may have left it,
or why. It could be drugs, guns, stolen jewelry, stolen technology, or
who knew what else. She was just an
errander
,
and
erranders
weren’t supposed to worry about that
stuff. If she got caught, she could always claim she didn’t know anything
illegal was contained in the box. That was one of the nice things about
her job.
Of course there
were some bad things about being an errander too—like the fact that it was
illegal, for instance. Another drawback was that
erranders
didn’t make too much money. But they didn’t have to worry about too much,
either. You didn’t have to do any of the scheming or plotting or decision
making. The big-time criminals did all that. All the
erranders
had to do was whatever the big-timers told them
to do.
...And make sure
they didn’t get caught. Jill was particularly good at not getting caught.
The package was
secure in the luggage compartment of her skybike. There were hardly any
other
skyvehicles
out here in the suburbs. Most
skytraffic was downtown. Anywhere else in the city it was illegal except
over major highways. She had to keep her skybike at ground level until
she got to Route 6 heading north toward downtown. Now she was hovering
thirty feet above the highway, as the law prescribed, and going the exact speed
limit. The last thing you wanted to do while you were on a job was draw
attention to yourself.
The rain kept
falling, glittering in her headlights. Jill watched the downtown skyline
creep closer, and saw the pointed top of the TSC building. That’s where
she was headed.
She had to stop
by her apartment first. She dropped her bike to ground level again as she
angled down a side street into a nice neighborhood. She headed east—which
on Anterra meant toward Earth. Soon she’d left the big houses and
manicured lawns behind and crossed into less reputable territory. The
hoodlums were out tonight in spite of the rain, slinking along the littered
sidewalks and graffiti-covered cement walls. She passed a fuel station
and turned into a dimly lit parking lot. She parked in front of a
ten-story apartment building that may have been a decent place when it had
first been built a few decades ago. Now it had decayed into the rundown
type of place you would expect an errander to live.
She unlocked the
front doors and stepped into the faintly lit lobby. Muffled noises came
from a dark corner where a couple sat fondling each other on a sofa. Jill
ignored them and crossed the discolored tile floor toward the elevators.
Fat Frank, the
landlord, was getting off the elevators just as she was getting on. Fat
Frank was the skinniest guy Jill had ever seen.
“Well, well.
Good evening, beautiful.” He greeted her through a creepy smile
that was missing a tooth or two. Fat Frank called all his female tenants
“beautiful,” and all his male tenants “buddy,” because he didn’t know their
real names. Most of them were
erranders
, living
and working under aliases.
“Frank,” she said
with a nod.
“Back home to
relax after another night of hard work, are we?” He stood between her and
the elevator, regarding her with yellowed eyes that wandered a little too much.
“No relaxation
tonight, unfortunately. Still on the job.”
“Well, then,” he
said, finally stepping aside, “good luck! Don’t get caught,
beautiful.” Fat Frank was always reminding his tenants not to get caught.
“Not planning on
it, Frank,” said Jill. The elevator door closed behind her and mercifully
cut off any further conversation.
She got off on
the ninth floor, and unlocked her small apartment. One glance at the
place reminded her that work, not housekeeping, had occupied all her attention
lately. She stepped through the clutter into the bedroom, and opened the
closet. Her outfit for the rest of the night hung ready—a dark business
suit unlike anything else Jill owned. She’d bought it yesterday,
specifically for tonight’s job. It would be her first time blending in
with the uppity business crowd along the Avenue of Towers.
She put on the
suit, and put rain gear on over that for riding. Then she grabbed the
briefcase that would complete her disguise. It looked like the sort of
briefcase a typical Anterran businesswoman would carry. But it
wasn’t. First of all it had a special insulation that would block metal
detectors. Second of all it was carrying a handgun that the metal
detectors would pick up otherwise. It was loaded with stunners, not real
bullets. But no one could tell the difference by looking.
She would
probably be the only armed businesswoman on the Avenue tonight.
JILL
headed north again. The skyline of downtown was in front of her.
Earth’s massive dark form was to her right. It was still several hours
before the sun would rise over the top of the Home Planet and cast Anterra into
daylight.
Soon she was
immersed in the lights and noises of downtown. Traffic never stopped or
even slowed down around here. Near the Avenue of Towers shoppers and
diners ambled along beneath umbrellas. Music thumped from the
clubs. Drunken laughter drifted from the bars. Neon signs
blinked. Buses roared. Cabs honked. City nightlife was in
full swing.
She stayed at the
first level of skytraffic. Ground traffic roared thirty feet beneath
her. The second level of skytraffic hummed thirty feet above her.
She took a right
turn, and she was soaring along the wide and showy Avenue of Towers. Here
the leisure traffic was mixed with an equal population of business
traffic. Like the rest of downtown the offices along the Avenue were no
less busy this time of night than they were at any other time.
Jill dropped her
bike to ground level. She parked in a side lot next to the TSC building
and grabbed the briefcase and the box. She went into a restroom off the
TSC entryway, took off her rain gear and stuffed it in a garbage can.
Then she opened the briefcase and took out a small but elaborate bathroom
kit. By the time she’d done her hair and makeup, she couldn’t help
smiling slyly at herself in the mirror. She was eighteen; but with this
outfit and makeover she could easily pass for early twenties, and there were
plenty of aspiring businesswomen of that age working here in the TSC building.
She left the
restroom and passed from the entryway into the huge lobby. Her shoes
clicked importantly on the polished floor. Other formally dressed men and
women ambled about the lobby, hardly giving her a second glance. She
blended right in.
At the end of the
lobby was a wide reception desk where visitors were supposed to sign in.
But Jill wasn’t playing the part of a visitor. She walked confidently
toward the elevators, hoping the desk attendants would assume she belonged
here. Apparently they did because they didn’t stop her.
She passed a
large decorative fountain with an abstract statue, and reached the
elevators. There were ten of them in a row, each with gleaming metallic
doors.
This was the
tricky part.
Jill stood off to
the side for a moment, waiting for a break in traffic. Finally she was
able to step onto an empty elevator without anyone following her. She was
alone with the uniformed attendant who stood by the buttons. She set the
box down next to her.