Rebels of Jupiter Page 2

  A cold sense of dread overcame Darvin as he left the monument’s grounds and started walking over to the treatment plant. He never knew what he should feel whenever he saw that monument. His father had fought for the rights and benefits of the people of Jupiter, rising in politics and shining a light for those who followed him. Yet why, Darvin thought, why did you change so suddenly. It made no sense, much to Darvin's frustration. The light shade from the trees as Darvin walked under them eased his mind, relaxing him slightly and turning him away from his memories.

  It was then that Darvin noticed that his connection to the Ring’s Central Net was severed. How long ago it happened he could not be sure. He walked through the brush of the park, staying away from the road as he made his way to the treatment plant. Ten minutes of walking slowly through the brush and trees brought him to the edge of a chain link fence that surrounded the water treatment plant.

  Armed guards were posted on top of the flat roof of the two story treatment plant. But these were no security guards as Darvin took full notice of them. The rebels had taken over the water treatment facility and seemingly also the Central Net. Why else would the Net be down? They were taking over the resources of the Ring, bringing it under their control very fast.

  The treatment plant was the beginning of the business district. Daniel’s Pub was only two blocks down the road, but if there were also rebels on other roofs then there was going to be trouble. He could only hope there weren’t many of them in this Ring.

  Darvin stood there, hiding behind a tree looking out through the links of the fence trying to think of what to do. He watched several men being lead into the plant, escorted by rebels. Darvin didn’t know what the rebels were using the plant for, but he knew they were taking over the Ring. He had to meet up with his partner Exsid as soon as possible. With the Central Net down who knows what’s happening with the other Rings, Darvin thought.

  ***

  Alexia Thores watched on a video feed in her Exovision as the shuttle docked into the loading bay. She felt the structure of the starliner shudder as the loading clamps homed into their respective spots. Her pale white skin seemed to meld into the blank Navaho white color of the walls that surrounded her cabin. She shut the projector off, revealing the blank wall where a projected image of a window or any scene could be placed to help people who were claustrophobic. This especially helped those who currently did not have Biocomps. Alexia herself before had a forest scene on as she watched their approach to Jupiter Ring Two. She looked over at Joseph, whose skin has yet to dull in the sunless low gravity environment the shuttle sported. He must have been using the tanning booths in the health salon, Alexia thought.

  Joseph was Alexia’s master in a sense. He had shown her the truth about the government of the Earth Commonwealth. He showed her how the Earth based government exploited the Lunar and Jovian colonies. He let her see the past, how the many governments of the Old Earth warred against each other for the limited resources available. And even now, he shown her images of people and groups who refused to be recognized under the single world government called the Earth Commonwealth. He also showed her those said people getting gunned down and murdered and how none of these atrocities were being reported.

  Alexia, a Jovian by birth, traveled to Earth as part of her work contract she had with the engineering firm she worked at. Her training in fusion systems was an area of study restricted by the Earth Commonwealth. Her training could only be conducted on Earth. Six months of travel by starliner each way, along with a four year training period. She had been gone for five years of her young life, barely reaching the age of thirty eight. She looked back at the empty wall, imagining her family and her then teenage son she was forced to leave behind to fulfill her Earth bound training contract. She imagined the feel of his short blonde her running through his fingers, the way he laughed as they played together after school, the smell of the trees and the river in the park they loved to walk around, and the way his brown eyes seemed to shine with wonder. But for now, she only felt the cool metal of the pen she carried around with her.

  ***

  Jupiter Ring Three Police Force Senior Detective Exsid Kade ran across the street, hoping the billowing smoke coming out of a store front would cover him as he dashed for the little girl. She just walked into the open street as if she was in a daze, dragging her stuffed bunny by the hand. Exsid nearly tackled her as he ran by and grabbed her, throwing her onto his shoulder as he continued to run. He ran straight into an alleyway where a foot sized hole was blasted into the corner of the building. Hiding behind the building he clutched the little girl tightly to his chest as he put his back against the synthetic brick building, breathing heavily and trying to catch his breath after the short sprint. She didn’t even move or squirm in his grasp but just stayed there unmoving.

  Exsid’s Exovision wavered a bit as he lost connection with the Central Net. Darvin had told him to meet him at Daniel’s Pub, but Exsid was still nearly two miles away. The fact that the Ring had a fourteen mile diameter didn’t help. Still, Exsid was sitting down on a couch at home watching the local Grav games instead of following up on a lead for a very minor theft. He was still wearing the tee shirt and jeans he had on while watching the game. Better than that popped up collared leather jacket that Darvin wears, Exsid thought. Although he does make a point to try to wear the same jeans or pants that I wear. He traveled nearly a mile in his unmarked patrol car right after the station was hit before he had to abandon it when he ran into a roving band of Rebels.

  With his pistol left in the car Exsid was forced to flee from alley to alley, dodging random three person patrols of Rebels that rolled through the streets. Some people were also running through the alleys but in the opposite direction while a few people were lying on the ground motionless. He was about to cross an open street before an explosion rocked the bakery that was next to him, sending a large amount of smoke out of its sole shattered front window. It was then that he saw the little girl walking in the street and it was then he ran out without a hesitating thought.

  It nearly cost him his life it seemed. He noted the fresh bullet marks on the ground near him. The Rebels would know where he was.

  After looking down at the girl’s motionless pigtailed brown hair Exsid moved quickly down the convoluted alleyways of the small business district and away from the mess he knew was going to erupt at the spot he just left. He reached a larger back alley that paralleled the streets and rammed his way through a synthetic wooden door, shattering the simple locking system. He fell down, tripping over himself as he tried to prevent anything from hitting the little girl.

  The Biocomp showed a dislocated shoulder and a torn Achilles tendon on the Medisplay window in his Exovision. He was getting old, and he felt it. The little girl began to stir as the Biocomp briefly numbed his right side and reset his shoulder while repairing his Achilles automatically with nanomeds. Exsid felt no pain as the shoulder joint popped back into place, but he couldn’t stop the little girl as she got up and began to walk out of the door, still clutching the stuffed bunny. He laid there, helpless on the floor as the Biocomp left has his body numb as it repaired his body. He laid there, watching the girl walk into the broad alleyway. He laid there, and watched as the girl was hit and thrown aside by a speeding jeep.

  Exsid crawled out of the door using his left arm, the only part of his body that was now not numb. He didn’t care if he was seen. He was only trying to get to the little girl who lay broken against the far wall. He grabbed ahead with his left arm, pulling himself forward as he pushed with his tingling leg, tears filling his eyes as he looked at her. He crawled, slowly regaining his right side and got up to his feet where he drunkenly trotted over to her.

  Falling to his knees, Exsid stared at her as a small stream of blood poured out from her head. Her left arm and leg were lying at an odd angle, both clearly broken. She was too young to have a Biocomp, too young to have any nanomeds deposited in her body to repair her wounds. He grabbed he
r gently, calling up the local map with his Mindcursor and forgetting that the Central Net was out. He had no directions and no map, and as he stood up he realized he had no clue where he was. I have to get her to the hospital before infection takes hold or she bleeds out, Exisd thought to himself as he found himself crying. He stared out to where the police station used to be, smoke still rising up to the metal ceiling a half mile above. The smoke was starting to interfere with the holographic sky that ran along the ceiling. Darvin would have to wait.

  ***

  Alexia boarded out of the shuttle and into the non-rotational loading dock. She glided past with others, trying to keep up with Joseph as her inner ear told her she was falling. It is side effects from there being no gravity, Alexia told herself to calm herself down. She carried with her only one belonging, a canvas travel bag her son made himself before she left for Earth. A tearful day it was when she watched him crying as they waved good bye. Joseph, interestingly, carried nothing.

  They both hurried out of the loading dock and into the circular low gravity lobby. Alexia’s son wouldn’t be here; he would still be in school right now and would be home by the time she got there herself. She planned on making him his favorite dinner after she was done smothering him with her love. They boarded one of the many Retaining elevators that separated the Ring from the loading dock and control room that was in its center. The elevators were almost as if they were spokes inside of a giant bicycle wheel where the axle was the center complex and the tire was the Ring itself.

  The elevator was still loading as they sat down. Joseph was the first to speak. “Everything in the bag?”

  “Everything that you told me to have, yes.”

  “Good, you should have no questions then.” Joseph’s cold attitude was normal for this type of situation. It was very near what they did back on Earth before they left. This would just be a repeat of that small practice exercise as Joseph called it.

  “I can’t wait to see Nikolai. He must be nearly seventeen now,” Alexia said happily.

  Joseph turned his head to look at her, an eyebrow of his slightly twitching. “Must be a cute kid.”

  “He will be cuter when I am hugging him,” Alexia said and giggled. She felt as if she was twenty again, right before she met a married man and had a brief love affair.

  “I’ll be heading to the bathroom. Be right back.”

  “All right,” Alexia said and pretended to pout as she watched him get up and leave. She reclined back into her seat, staring up at the blank ceiling as thoughts of her son filled her head.

  Alexia reached into her canvas bag and grabbed her notepad and clicked her pen. She jotted down a random sketch of an electrical design she thought of while seeing her son. Setting both aside on the small table next to her she waited for Joseph to come back. The hatch doors closed though, and the elevator began its descent down to the ring. That’s odd, she thought. She got up to move, but the sudden acceleration of the elevator caused her to stumble a bit where she knocked over the table that had her notepad and pen on it. She regained her balance and went to the bathroom stalls near the center of the ring shaped elevator room.

  All the bathroom stalls were unoccupied. Alexia curiously looked at this and worriedly wondered where Joseph went. She walked back to her seat to see a little boy picking up her pad and pen. He ran over to her with a big smile on his face as if he thought he was doing something very nice for someone he didn’t know. All she saw was his thumb over the end of the pen, watching his little finger tense slightly as it pressed down on the pen to retract its tip. She tried to yell for him to stop, but nothing ever left her mouth as the explosion engulfed her.

  A magnetic containment field inside the pen turned off, releasing several hundred grams of densely packed antimatter. An explosion of pure energy tore through the elevator room, blasting a hole out into space and separating the elevator from its tether. Momentum held the elevator moving towards it destination as it barreled its way down going nearly sixty miles an hour. The elevator collided with its docking day on the Ring, its mass collapsing the bay and opening up a gash in the Ring where its outer layers were at their thinnest. Precious atmosphere and other fluids streamed out into space. Specialized nanobots inside the Ring quickly erected two thin barriers inside the Ring itself to prevent the atmosphere of the whole Ring from being ejected. The barriers sealed off a section of the Ring, dooming all who were below the crash site before other nanobots worked on sealing the gash. It was a task that took more time due to the force of the escaping gases.

  Joseph watched the events unfold through the thick windows of the loading dock, his face expressionless. He pitied using Alexia as his pawn, but her mind was easy to shape and mold. She would never know that the explosion would be blamed on Earth Commonwealth operatives doing a retaliation strike for the explosion that took place at an orbital spire on Earth itself. Propaganda, Joseph thought, will be what wins this war. He took one more look of the wreckage of the elevator that imbedded itself into the Ring, and moved away from the throng of people that surrounded the window also looking at the horrific event that was unfolding. He glided over to a docking station where a private spacecraft was docked. He had some more work to do.

  Chapter 2

  Historians blame the Great Collapse and the near extinction of the human race on the way humanity lived in the late twentieth century. With the carrying capacity of the land dependent on the continued production of fertilizers from petroleum products, food production declined dramatically and prices skyrocketed when oil prices boomed. The increase in oil prices caused developed nations to fight over what was left. This led to the beginning of World War III. With the advent of feasible fusion generators designed near the end of World War III, governments switched to offshore platforms for mining the waters for deuterium. Instituting a new currency called Energens, based on the production of energy instead the old standard of gold dropped long before the onset of the war, two of the three remaining governments joined together to form the Earth Commonwealth and ending World War III. Their first joint task was the construction of the Stalks and the beginning of the development of the Earth Ring and Armstrong Habitats to replenish the carrying capacity that the Earth could no longer provide.

  -The History of the Earth Commonwealth

  One block away from the water treatment plant, Darvin crouched in the shadows of a ruined electronics store. He waited before crossing the street over to the new building, checking to make sure no one was in sight before dashing across. He sprinted the rest of the block behind the several buildings in the alleyways, appearing as a mere shadow passing through the narrow gaps between the buildings. The useless spaces were just psychological features to give humanity a normality in the emptiness of space. Now it served as a hideaway for Darvin as he raced to Daniel’s Pub.

  There used to be a time when Darvin was a kid, when he used to run through these gaps with friends. Those were the times when he was carefree, smiling and laughing with his friends that included Exsid, who was his father’s partner and like an uncle to him.

  Those were the times before the events with his father. Those were the times before he became a detective and saw how the cruel side of humanity had also came into space as well. Those were the times when he used to be happy.

  The gaps between the buildings and the streets were deserted except for the random rebel dressed in matte black armor. Darvin could only hope that his partner would be at the pub when he got there. For all Darvin knew, Exsid could still have been at home watching the games again on his wall projector. Darvin dismissed that thought. Exsid knew how bad it was.

  When Darvin picked the lock to the back door of Daniel’s Pub, he found a series of firearms pointed his way. The place was packed with people. People normally on the busy intra-avenue that ran the whole length of the Ring dived into whatever buildings they were near. Even in the middle of the afternoon, Commonwealth time, Daniel managed to open the doors to his pub for people seeking sanctuary. />
  “Jesus, Darvin. Did you really have to enter through the back?” Daniel said from behind the bar as they all lowered their low powered weapons, mostly stun guns. Everyone stood down as they saw it was just the Silver-eye.

  Darvin looked passed Daniel and the crowd, seeing the closed shades out in the front windows. The telescreens were showing the standard emergency screen. “With what’s happening outside you still wanted me entering through the front?” Darvin asked as he stepped into the pub and locked the door behind him.

  “Why not? Would be fitting,” Daniel stated smugly as his beer belly leaned onto the top of the bar. Darvin was never the nicest person, even with a few drinks in him.

  “Yeah, yeah. Love you too,” Darvin said as he sat onto one of the free stools.

  “Knowing you Darvin, I would have thought you were one of them.”

  “I’m glad I got such a great reputation,” Darvin replied sarcastically.

  “So, you know anything?”

  “No.”

  “You’re a cop. How could you not know?”

  “I’m a detective, not just a cop. And Central Net is out, meaning no Dispatch.”

  “Aren’t there any back ups?” Daniel said hopefully. People around them started to come closer to hear the conversation.

  “No, the Rings weren’t built for this type of thing in mind. You never hear the politicians talking about lowering the already low crime rate.”

  “So there’s nobody coming?”

  “Not as far as I know. Not yet at least. Give me a beer.”