FutureScape: Snippet: Amelia: Part One
FutureScape:Snippet:Amelia:Part One
Sitting in his plush faux leather chair staring out his balcony’s plate glass window Mark, ran through events the last few days.
His car landed on the deserted lot in New City. What had once been a thriving industrial park was now nothing more than a rubble heap of lost dreams.
Amused with himself for being so philosophical he chuckled to himself as he exited his vehicle.
Readings on Bio-Suit
- Temp 104F (an average day)
- Air quality (i.e. breathability) just below safe levels.
He removed the outer layer of his bio-suit leaving the second skin and his mask in place. Surveying his immediate area he saw no reason to arm himself. He left his blaster pistol in the door of his car. Just in case he needed to make a quick dash getaway or worse the retrieval of his blaster, he left the door ajar.
For ten minutes he scoured the dusty lot for any kind of clue. For the last twenty-four hours he'd been searching for the missing daughter of his old friend and boss Melaren Duncan.
It'd been years since he'd even heard a peep out of old Melaren. They'd not exactly parted on good terms. Something about him costing the department 1.3 billion credits in Social Fees.
As he remembered things it was the department that hung him out to dry. Sure he'd stepped on a few people's privileges and had blown up a federation outpost -- “A small insignificant outpost” he thought to himself. But instead of backing him up, admitting that he was just following orders. Creatively sure, but his creativity in closing cases had never been brought into question before. Not until the Federation came knocking on his bosses’ door. That’s when it became clear he was on his way to being permanently under a bus.
Eh, whatever. It didn't matter now. What mattered at this moment was finding Amelia. And after walking the lot for the third time: the lot where he was pretty sure she had been last night, presumably alive.[re-write previous sentence. It’s clunky.] He, regrettably came to the conclusion that there was nothing here to find. Why she had been here to meet a man, he was sure she had no business meeting in the first place, still alluded him as well.
“Hey man… I already told you what I know!” said Sammy. A scruffy— make that dingy and ill looking hoodlum. Max, had been working him over pretty good for the last twenty minutes. All he’d been able to get out of him was that “this ginger chick” assuming he meant Amelia, had come ‘round looking for Ratman. What she wanted with him Sammy wasn’t saying or just didn’t know. Mark was at least able to find out where this meeting was supposed to have taken place; some empty lot in an abandoned industrial district. And that it was supposed to have happened last night around 19:00 cst. Roughly twenty-three hours ago.
Mark got in his vehicle and headed directly for the area Sammy had told him about.
Sighing, Mark headed back to his vehicle. Not two steps and wham! It felt like a truck had slammed right into his chest. He stumbled back a step confused then — wham again!— He fell to the ground as fast as gravity would allow. This time he had no doubt what had happened. He’d been shot. Twice. “Shit” he scrambled best he could to his vehicles door. “Get the pistol” was all he could think. That and an indignant thought about being shot. “Why the hell would anyone bother shooting a man wearing his second skin?” he thought to himself. Whoever this was must know it wouldn’t kill him, or even do any permanent damage. “Doesn’t matter— just get to the gun…
He grabbed his pistol and turned to see if he could tell where the shots had come from. Looming over him blotting out the background was a hulk of a man with an old-timey shotgun pointed directly at Marks head.
“I hear you been poke’n ‘round— ask’n ‘bout things you oughtn’t be ask’n ‘bout.” (to be continued)