thank you all so much i think it got the link figured out[Please reference this as crit "#13523" in the Subject: header of your
email, including "#". Critiques on this manuscript are due on or
before Wednesday, 31-Jan-2007. Author's notes, if any, will be at the end.
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title: Rhapsody In Black
author: Eric Polk
genre: SF
form: S
words: 2,000
[Note! This was converted via aburt's MSWord-to-text conversion
program, and thus any formatting oddities are probably from that,
and not the author's fault.]
Ms:
words: 2,000
Centaur, fresh-faced inspector for the Beta City PD, rode the
Hotel Constellar's chrome-plated transport with the confidence of a
fighter pilot. Though he was trying to put on a good gambler's face, his
intestinal instincts were tingling in anticipation. Riding the lift, his
thoughts turned to all those pulp whodunits he had read that featured the
cliche'd hard-boiled, been there-done that attitude the detectives had
seemed to elude him.
The past two years serving under old fogey Matos had seen three
murder cases, a dozen dv's and a broken pedophile ring handled with
success, but this was his first all by himself and ready or not he wanted
to please everyone on the force.
"Whoa there pal," A husky voice spoke. "No buddy past da line."
Centaur snapped out of his reverie, forgetting to realized he was
standing in front of a closed hotel room door."Oh,'cuse me! Looks like I'm
the guy assigned to this wingding."
The sentry gave him a thoughtful glance as he scanned his
bonafides. "Ol' Matos hung up his badge, eh?"
"Yeah, took his pension in Galliano bottles and Cartway escort."
Centaur replied as he wiped a dot of spittle on his coat.
"Humph, we all wind up there once we do our twenty. Get out while
you still have all you matter. I started on the force thinking I could be
a superhero and now look at me!"
"Yeah look at you now." Centaur said while patting the sentry's
rotund midsection.
"Hope you didn't eat chow before you came." The sentry chuckled as
he cocked a velvet appendage at the door.
The murder scene was something out of a Cammi Tylo horror film
as the room's powder blue marble floor held a young lady whose nude body
was twisted like a deficient pretzel, the face would have been gorgeous
had it not been for the contusions, busted teeth, and the third-degree
burn marks dotting her. A rag stained gravy brown had been jammed in her
mouth seeming to add the right touch to this otherwise humdrum tragedy.
The rest of the place was ornamented with the formulaic devices
of wickedness such as empty vino bottles, mating ritual enhancement toys
and even the remains of a pretty decent room service meal left on the bed.
Centaur happened to also notice a couple of synthetic vials that when held
to his flare light, resembled fragments of pepper, a spice he had sampled
on a trip to Earth in his youth. He turned one of them over and over again
in a gloved hand.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, fascinated by that stuff?" A thin, orange-textured
being asked.
"Shoot this ain't nothing," Centaur replied in a half-hearted
attempt to convince himself as he showed the new face the vials. "I just
never have seen this before."
The guy whose jacket showed he worked in forensics gave a short
glance and laughed," Ah, Prezatine, the galaxies newest pharmaceutical
rage, now appearing in Beta City, live and in Digital Definition!"
_Bastards!_ He thought while making notes on his standard issue
Articia pad. Every drug case he handled with Matos had special meaning to
him. It was the death of his childhood sweetheart at the hands of the
Kelton Mafia, the biggest cartel in the sector that made him choose law
enforcement.
"Hey, did you happen to get a closer look at the body?" The hyper
forensics person asked.
"Huh," Centaur seemed a little disoriented but came back to
reality to notice the five black marks on one of her slashed wrist. "Good
thing is her ID is still intact."
Forensics, who looked about to achieve a height of climax not
reached since his first time with a secondary instructor, howled," Your
gonna enjoy this!"
Centaur's Articia revealed," Of all things unholy."
The cackling by Forensics grew louder than an electrical storm.
"That's right rook," A new, feminine voice echoed across the
hallway. "It's Analita a.k.a. Mayor Joliet's little girl."
"Hi Chief Rynson, You finally got your nose surgically detached
from the government trough?" Forensics asked.
The diminutive yet well-built woman approached them looking as
if she had been pinched by a school of crustaceans.
"Save your comedy for the has-been circuit." With a dismissal of
her hand, Rynson peered into Centaur's narrow silts that passed for eyes
in his anatomy.
"It's gotta be a Kelton hit. Their calling card is all over this."
The inspector began.
Her singular lip thinned at the idea, "Is that what you think?
Someone wanted to give you a clue as to what is going." She barked as she
handed him a small manila parcel addressed to Centaur.
Inside was a handwritten note in a text he couldn't understand.
"It'll take the boys in the lab weeks to figure this out. I'm not
a linguistics expert. Who sent this?"
"What are you asking me for? You're the crime-solver! And for
another piece of bad news, dear old dad is giving you forty-eight hours
before he rolls all of our heads. He gave the standard I don't want to
look like I can't control crime routine all the while he's not even
shedding a tear for her. Nothing but empty politics as usual newbie!"
"Consider it done chief." Was the only thing he could muster in
response.
_My first break and I gotta treat this like a fast food order._
As he made his way back to the body, his mind produced a warm sensation
within him. It gave him the loose feel he got after working out. The
medics hadn't zip locked her yet and he could've cared less at that point.
He studied her form, trying to imagine a young, viral lady at the
beginning of adulthood. He had read she was studying to receive a Masters
Degree in Quadrant Terrestrial Biology at Horlicks University on Earth. He
imagined all those guys at school trying to pony up to get a shot at the
porcelain princess, now her whole life empty as the city's treasury.
"Don't worry about a thing doll," He bent over to whisper. "You
got a confused, all-too-keen Scooby solver on the case."
As the med techs began to give her a dead person's escort, he
swore she was cracking at a smile.
The next couple of hours where a blur as the media vipers asked
all those inane questions they were paid to ask, a visit from the mayor,
another brutal talk with the chief and the expected response from the lab
regarding the mysterious note he had received. _It will take forever to
figure out. It's an arcane form of Omegan dialect...you'd better have the
chief fly someone in from D.C. for this one._ Through all of this he was
still preoccupied with Analita. How did she wind up as worm food in a
classy hotel? The file he had read on her didn't tell him anything
unexpected. Honor student, 3.9 GPA so-on and so-forth but he couldn't help
but stare at her picture. _Long black hair, a little thick in the middle
but not enough to notice, smile that can brighten an out of work solinon
miner on Pluto..._PING... PING... PING. He shook his head out of his
latest daydream to see that the annoying ping from his data screen
indicated he had a message.
HEY WISEGUY>>>HER SCREAMS SOUNDED LIKE THE MUSE OF AN ANGEL>>>
Centaur was about to ring up Lem, the head of the motor pool and
resident prankster (anything no matter how sick and twisted to get a laugh
was his mantra) when the blue screen switched to what looked like a
dig-def view of Analita's decomposing carcass along with a bizarre text
scrolling on the bottom.
YOU THINK YOUR COP FRIENDS WOULD JEST>>>another message displayed
-. YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS HERE>>>>YOU'RE A GRUB ON THE PADS OF THEIR FEET.
All Centaur could do was play along. CAN YOU TRANSLATE? He typed
back.
PEEKABO>>>WE SEE YOU>>>the stranger's message kept repeating.
Attempts to pin down the transmission through timestamps and old school
triangulation (despite being a mark for the government he never trusted a
lot of the current technology) proved useless until a searing pain torched
his head and he collapsed.
He awoke to hear not the beeping of a medical monitor or the
sounds of tiny dig-def sets in other beds, but instead nighttime traffic
and music designed to make the average listener go hearing-impaired.
Weapons shot outside made him reach for his customized A17-3 pistol (a
graduation gift from his bearer) only to feel thermal sleepwear on his
suction cup shaped hand as opposed to the polysuit he wore on the job. He
spun around to the environment of dirty laundry, scattered law enforcement
journals and empty take-out cartons that passed for de'cor in his
dilapidated loft that overlooked Clemente Square and a few of the less
appetizing sectors of the city.
He went to make a call to the chief but the buzzing of his
com-op device already had done the work for him.
"I'm sorry chief, I don't know what happened..." He began.
As he listened to her ranting and raving, he went to feel around
his coat pocket for a bottle of analgesic but instead found a little strip
of plastic containing words in the same style as the note he had received
earlier. Whether it was the blackout or something else, the fog in his
head had cleared, energy level higher than it had been in years.
DROWNING... CHAINED... DEEP... RELEASE was all he could read.
"What's a matter rook, the proverbial cat got your goad?" the chief
hollered.
"Can't talk right now chief," His voice became soft in
understanding." There's something I need to do."
He clicked off his device and looked at the cause of his lower tone
staring at him. An elfin-sized, olive-toned woman standing over a bed that
had seen better times, slashes across her neck accentuated her along with
her auburn hair and amazingly pleasant demeanor. Before he could say
anything, she grabbed him by his arm, opened her mouth releasing a convoy
of flying insects.
(HEY-HEY!!!)
"Inspector.... Inspector!!!"
This time he was besieged by the sounds of bleeping med monitors
and of tiny dig-def sets. His detective garb was replaced with a papery
white gown and what seemed to be a thousand wires and nodes hooked up to
him.
`Time for a boost Inspector Centaur," The nurse on duty said,
injecting him with some kind of hypo. "Mustn't let those headaches get any
worse!"
The annual policemen's formal was as stuffy as ever, with the usual
banter among the higher ups about extra budget money, laws more affable
toward the enforcers as opposed to the preset. As far as a full police
dressed Centaur was concerned, the sight of Analita in his arms made up
for all the usual wrangling and hassle. Over the sounds of some old love
song played by a has-been act, they laughed as they gazed into each
other's eyes (it was rare for her species to have only two, thus she look
more like heaven to him).
"I can't believe we met all those months ago. You have become the
center of my universe babe." Centaur exclaimed.
She just stared at him in silence, he noticed her skin was
beginning to erupt in orange blisters, steam rising from her as flakes
turned into clumps, snowing the dance floor. The horror he was facing was
nothing compared to what was to come....
He came to sometime later; the dance floor was now four padded
white walls, his dress uniform now a binder suit. Futile attempts to break
free were stopped as two young men entered.
"Hello Mitchell, the doctor would like to see you again!" One of
them said.
_Mitchell?_
He tried to talk but all that came out was,"....bleh...ma...
Cent..."
"Of course." The other man replied.
"I see someone was nice enough to leave another Centaur novel
Mitchell," Young man number one spoke. " But you know your not aloud to
read anything until the doc says its ok."
He punched the detective in the head, not hard but enough to
reestablish the relationship they had had.
Young man number two scooped him up with a heavy motion as they
made their way to visit the doctor.
Along the way Centaur swore he saw Analita, clad in a nursing
outfit, smiling at him.
================
Author notes:
This is the first of which I hope are many stories set in the
mythical Beta City
[End of Critter's Submission.]
hope everyone likes it if not no big deal
