Gregorian Year 2126
The Nurrumoth looked at things differently. To them, a ship name must represent the significant nature of its purpose. The light cruiser which had rescued Lyric was called The Mothership. Bigger than planets, and more ancient, its engines as quiet as a graveyard. Most of the rescued earthlings boarded on it a century ago. The ship's AI counted them. Four billion people, plus a few other animal species. Which was a minuscule number, almost negligible compared to the ship's enormity. Initial hours were brutal on the Mothership. Humans stood anxiously in one of the halls. Bodies packed tight: crying kids, whispering women, swearing men. Stale, sweaty smells in the air. Communication was the need of the hour. The Nurrumoth couldn't understand any earthly languages and vice versa. The AI ran its learning processes by observing scenes, almost like a child only faster. It learned English, Spanish and Mandarin in due time. Earthlings were quick adapters. They bettered the engines and cooked flavourful food. The Nurrumoth exceeded restoratively. The refugees brought culture to the table, the Nurrumoth brought care. Over time, a symbiotic friendship had been cultivated between them. It was an unparalleled social and technological golden age. A blueprint perceived by all to be utopian in nature. Great scientists, artists and philosophers thrived in that period of time. Observers from other solar systems chose to term it Magna Epoch. The Great Era.
As the years passed, more fleets full of refugees arrived from other human worlds. Their homes, broken and their souls, shattered. Shattered by Xarth, a drug lord largely known for his acts against humanity. The refugees still had free will, in no way they were held captive except for twelve rather out of the ordinary individuals. The Nurrumoth carelessly chased the techniques of neural augmentation. Several attempts later, they managed to achieve gland implantation in those twelve brains which enabled mind reading. An ability to literally read someone's thoughts. To feel their emotions. The telepath experiments were controversial at the time, though people understood its purpose of assisting the interstellar authorities in stopping the savagery of fiends like Xarth.
In the year 2121, a majority of refugees left the Mothership in search of new planets to colonize. The lust for exploration remained as an unchanging characteristic in patterns of human behaviour. That and insecurity. And thus, the Magna Epoch ended. Lyric's final Awakening from the experiment happened after the separation. He was one of twelve unfortunate people who missed the quixotic century. Now, only ten thousand humans resided on the Mothership.
• • •
City of Crowburn, Esteria.
In Crowburn, the evenings are somewhat cold, inordinately gentle, and, the sentiment particular to the city, charismatically alluring. In just such weather and on the terraces of the highest towers, in the best restaurants, at dinner parties one desired to attend, the conversation was, of cinema, fashion, politics, love affairs, and, yes, the war on drugs — that too had its moment. Almost anything, really, except Xarth. Above one such restaurant, Lyric shuddered awake in his apartment, clawing himself up from that dream, that nightmare, where a war was lost, where men died and children screamed. He rolled his feet to the floor, slouched on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, and listened to the sounds of chatter below.
Eyes full of fatigue, an ache in his head, an acid churn in his stomach, and his mind still battling to escape the grips of his nightmare. Someone rang the apartment bell, and he froze, spooked out of the chain of his thoughts. The bell rang again, and his name, muffled through the door. He put a hand on the mattress and pushed himself quietly to his feet. His hand felt numb and hefty from where he had slept on it, and it slipped and thumped the plasma pistol, which clinked and clattered against the wine bottles.
Lyric stared guiltily across the room in the sudden silence. The bell rang again, with a hard knocking on the door as well. He began to walk toward the knocking, feeling the ache joyriding around his skull like a marble inside a glass jar. He breathed deeply and threw the latch back on the door and flung it open.
A policeman stood in the hallway outside. A Crowburn native. A Bratleon.
"Special Agent Blu?"
Lyric looked at him through the spreading ache behind his gaze.
"I think you bloody well know who I am."
The man put his heels together and saluted. "Sergeant Zerandro, sir. I have orders for you to report to Chief Zaramuk immediately."
Lyric stared at sergeant Zerandro.
"I believe your solar phone has died. I have Chief Zaramuk on the phone right now. Here." the sergeant handed his phone to Lyric.
"Hello?" Lyric croaked.
"Lyric, I suppose we better go pick up old Lord Xarth."
"You know where he is?" Lyric asked.
"Better," Zaramuk said. "I know where he is going to be."
The call ended. Lyric put his hand behind his head and scratched, nodding a bit with a zealous glint of light in his eyes.
"Very well. Give me ten minutes."
"Yes sir. Ten minutes." Zerandro was a veteran officer. The three gold stars of master sergeant on his shoulder were proof of that, and a good sergeant knew how to frame a statement to an agent so it sounded like an order.
Lyric closed the door, picked up his towel and toiletry bag, and shuffled to the bathroom. He stooped over the sink as he felt the churning in his belly come hurling up. He spewed, his head beginning to pound as he bent over but, nothing came up, only a frail rasp of bile, like the sticky residue of his work and life. His gut calmed, eventually, and he shivered as he stayed hunched over the sink, the pounding in his head turning into a dull ache that remained in the top of his skull. He held his head in his hands, eyes pressed into the heels of his palms. Another night and he had barely slept, and what sleep he managed gave him no rest. The tap sprayed water into the ceramic basin, then he carefully shaved. He rinsed off and only then permitted himself to look in the mirror. Not quite as dreadful as he felt, he saw. Big grey eyes, sharp cheekbones, brown hair with a faded undercut. A magnetic face. He wet his messy hair, combed it, sprayed cologne on his arms and neck and water in his armpits, and he was done. He stared at himself in the mirror for one last time. "As good as it gets," he mumbled, putting out the light and shuffling back to his room.
Lyric swallowed a couple of painkillers, drank as much water as he could. He wore what he sported every day, a black shirt, a black pair of trousers, a pair of leather shoes, also black. He shrugged into his jacket as the night seemed cold, zipping the zipper as he gazed at the dark clouds on the horizon from his window, thinking of nothing except the day to come and how to get through it.
A step at a time, he knew.
He took his pistol from the bedside, sliding the gun into the holster.
"All right, let's go," he said, locking out his door.
Lyric saw the change come to Zerandro's eyes as a sophisticated professional came out of the room a half-dressed, half-drunk man had gone into.