Well, here is the crappy first draft of my new story. Please feel free to rip it to shreds because I know it sucks. I wrote more, but after this the story started sucking even more. I will probably delete that part and keep going after this.
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It was dark, which was unusual for a Tuesday. Usually Tuesday was the twilight time, as the local red sun hung low above the horizon. I had to check my sat-com twice to be sure of it. Weathercorp had thrown in an extra Tuesday, to make up for the difference between Hun Wat’s rotation, which didn’t take exactly seven days, Earth standard time.
****
It was dark, which was unusual for a Tuesday. Usually Tuesday was the twilight time, as the local red sun hung low above the horizon. I had to check my sat-com twice to be sure of it. Weathercorp had thrown in an extra Tuesday, to make up for the difference between Hun Wat’s rotation, which didn’t take exactly seven days, Earth standard time.
What that meant to me was that it was dark. Really dark like it never is on Earth. Hun Wat’s foul atmosphere, polluted by the coal belching mega-factories, never let in the stars. What made things worse was that Powerco never bothered to light this poverty-stricken part of the city. There was no one to pay the bill. Even with my lightstick, I could not see through the black fog more than 20 feet. But I kept my lightstick off, for fear of drawing attention to myself. It was dark like the inside of a coal-sack, excuse the metaphor. It was dark like the heart of a megacorp executive. It was dark like –
A nearby cackling laugh disturbed me. Probably one of Hun Wat’s millions of homeless, human and alien of a multitude of species. I was already feeling edgy but now things were worse. This was a high crime sector, best avoided even in daytime. I had gone to this meeting without back up, not remembering it would be a dark leap-day Tuesday. I might pay for my folly with my life. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
But I had been on the Talbot case for two weeks, trying to find evidence of a murder, but so far nothing. The phone call this morning, from an anonymous informant, was my first solid lead. So I stayed where I was at the agreed-to place and waited for the informant to call me at the agreed-to time.
I lit up a spice-stick and waited. The city throbbed with a steady pulse as the mega-factories cranked out machines, tools, weapons, and manufactured goods of all shapes and sizes. Hun Wat was the industrial capital of Known Space. That, combined with Hun Wat’s numerous wormhole gates, made Hun Wat a center of interstellar trade, the most important planet inhabited by humans, save only Earth itself. And yet, all but a few thousand of Hun Wat’s one billion residents lived within 100 kilometers of this spot I was standing on, a vast metropolis known simply as Hun Wat City. The rest of the planet was undrained swamp and poison seas.
It was exactly 3:00 a.m. when my sat-com rang with that tune my wife had set for me five years ago. I never changed it, even after she left me. I held my wrist up to my jaw and answered. “Parker.”
A man’s voice whispered on the line, “Is this Cole Parker the investigator?”
“Right. That’s me.”
“You’re investigating the Talbot death?”
“Right.”
“Please follow my instructions to the letter.”
“Like hell I will,” I thought, not liking to be bossed around by an informant. But I said, “Go on.”
“Proceed two blocks south and six blocks west to the Xenon nightclub,” the voice whispered again. “I will be waiting at the booth closest to the north exit. Please go now. Make sure you’re not followed.”
I was about to say some rude words, but there was no use. I badly needed a break in the case. So I had to play by the informer’s rules. For now.
I left Earth a year ago for a new life on Hun Wat. With my police training I ended up as the local equivalent: insurance investigator. My employer was the Benevolent Hands Life Insurance Company. I was investigating the death of one Chambers Talbot IV, a junior-level executive in Hartman Corp., Hun Wat’s largest and most powerful mega-corporation. Hartman neighborhood security had ruled it suicide. The claims adjusters at Benevolent Hands wanted to make sure. If Talbot was murdered, the life insurer could collect against the killer’s insurance company. Not to mention the acquisition of a valuable slave for the tirinium mines. I don't like slavery, not even clone slavery, but for a murderer I will make an exception.
I did some maneuvers to make sure no one was tailing me. All I had to guide me was the dim light from my wireless. I didn’t want to use a lightstick because that would make me too easy to follow.
At 7:21, I entered the Xenon. It was dark, loud, hot, humid, and jammed with young people having a good time and sweating profusely. Strobe lights danced on shadowy figures, writhing to what I assumed was music. My wife and I went to places like this on Earth when we were dating, many years ago. That ended with marriage, and kids, and a mortgage. The last of my kids were out of the nest. My wife left two weeks later. I tried drowning my sorrows with alcohol, but that didn’t work. So I immigrated to Hun Wat, the only colony that would have me.
He was waiting at a booth in the back, near an emergency exit. I was actually surprised. I hadn’t seen an emergency exit since I left Earth. Hun Wat had no government and no fire safety officials to demand such things. In this sector, there wasn’t even private security. Perhaps there had been a fire. Perhaps customers had died in a vain search for exits, a lesson learned about the dangers of unregulated and unprincipled free enterprise.
I sat down and looked over the informer. He was short and thin. In the darkness, all I could see was his profile. There was something familiar about it, but I couldn’t –
“You weren’t followed?” he said.
“No.”
“Talbot didn’t commit suicide,” he said, after the waiter took our order. The waiter was a clone, and completely hairless like every other clone.
I lit up a spice-stick. Everything was legal on Hun Wat, even smoking.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said, coughing delicately.
I kept smoking. I wasn’t going to let an informer interfere with my newfound freedom.
There was a pause which lasted until he realized I had no intention of putting out my spice-stick.
“Talbot wasn’t murdered either,” he said, cryptically.
“So Talbot died of natural causes, after he ingested all those pain-killers?”
“You’re not taking my meaning,” said the man. “The body tested positive for zenta poisoning. Death was by poison, that much is certain.”
“So Talbot was poisoned?”
“No,” said the man, who seemed to be enjoying himself. “Talbot was not poisoned. Furthermore, he did not poison himself.”
I paused to consider this.
“I don’t like mind games,” I said at last.
The waiter brought our drinks. My informer had one of those fruity cocktails women drink. I had a beer, a brand from Earth I fondly remembered.
“Listen to me again,” said the man, slowly, as if speaking to a small child. “Talbot was not murdered. Talbot did not commit suicide. Talbot did not die of natural causes.” He paused and took a sip at his fruity cocktail. It was dark, but I could almost see the smug look on his face. He was feeling clever toying with an old investigator like me, like a cat toying with a mouse.
I took a few sips of my beer to think things over. It was time to put the informer on the defensive.
“You’re wasting my time,” I said at last, standing up and turning to leave. Unexpectedly, he grabbed my arm.
“Wait! Don’t go!” he pleaded.
I grabbed his hand and twisted it back, something I learned from long years on the police force. The man had a soft palm and delicate fingers. He screamed with pain.
I was walking out of the nightclub. I checked my wireless. It was 7:43. I would go home and call it a day.
“You’re the only one who can help me!” yelped the informer, desperately dogging my steps.
I ignored him and kept walking.
“Please!!!”
“Why should I help you?” I said at last, turning around on the street in front of the nightclub.
The informer was standing next to rather obscene tri-vi projection, which was the owner’s attempt to lure the public to join the decadent fun in the Xenon. In the bluish light of the hologram, I got a good look at the man for the first time. He was young, mid-20’s maybe, handsome yet frail, below average height, and dressed in a ragged business suit that hadn’t been air-cleaned in weeks.
“You should help me because Talbot isn’t dead,” said the young man, his familiar profile becoming a familiar face, a face I’d seen on the dead, not two weeks earlier.
“I am Talbot.”
