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Here is where Pete Nicholls posts the first drafts of whatever he's working on and feels like making public. Currently, it's chapters from "New Earth City", a novel about the fall of a futuristic society set in a ring of space stations around the sun. Sometimes, drafts from other projects will appear here. Check out ThePeteNicholls.com for more.

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

New Earth City, 10 January

The next few days were quiet. The quiet before the storm, I suppose.

I kept my eyes on the inFeeds--well, all feeds, really. Unfortunately, it looked like Cho hadn't managed to put the story in front of anyone important before he died. The thing that still nags me is that the obituary had said Cho had died of a heart attack. But who has heart attacks anymore? And when I saw him, he seemed pretty healthy to me.

This is all so stupid. It's all so very stupid.

Sorry--everything was quiet until the morning of the tenth.

One-Ten.


I was woken by a voice coming from my smartBox. I didn't recognize it as I drifted away from my sleep.

I looked over to the nightstand to see the avatar of who ever was speaking--it was just a big box. No face--just a flesh-colored box with a mouth.

"It's a terrible shame, Mr. Conant."

"What's that?" I asked, my head still clouded with the night's dreams I was about to forget.

"It's a shame that because of you and what you did there will be consequences."

"Who is this?"

"I really didn't want to do it, but you've made me, Mr. Conant. It's your fault. Not mine."

"What are you talking about? Who is this?"

Suddenly, the avatar retracted back into my smartBox as though it had had the air sucked out of it.

I rolled over and as I drifted off to sleep, I decided that I was pretty sure that the voice belonged to that guy in the park the other day.

Maybe an hour or two later I began to drift awake again. This time I didn't know why I just remember seeing through my only very slightly opened eyes the blurry image of an avatar forming--this one actually looked like a face. However, I couldn't recognize it without fully opening my eyes. So, I did just that, rubbing the sleep out of them, and sat up.

I was started at the identity of the avatar. The fact that it was talking to me didn't have an impact--I was still mostly asleep.

"Who are you and why are you using that avatar?"

"Jim, that's what I'm telling you--it's me, Stanley Cho--I'm not dead. I had to disappear for a bit."

Cho's avatar seemed calm, but that can be faked easily enough.

"So, what do you want from me?"

"I've discovered something disturbing. Something... unavoidable."

"What?" I was understandably confused.

"I need you to meet me--or rather Van, I suppose, this afternoon at 1400."

"OK, where?"

"At the spaceport, just off the A-mono down by Future Park."

"Where I met with Van?"

"Yes, that nearby. Can you do it? You must be on time, now."

"Yes, of course--but why me?"

The avatar pantomimed taking a breath.

"I suppose that can't wait."

"No, it can't. I won't go unless you tell me."

"It's because it's your fault."

His words hung in the space between my head and the smartBox for a long moment.

"Jim?"

"What is my fault?"

"Just come down to the spaceport by 1400. It'll be crazy, lots of people and chaos, so be aware."

I smiled. "Usually, we're told not to do that."

"I know. There was a time when being aware was a good thing."

"All right. I'll be there."

I wasn't sure what made me want to go. I suppose my journalist's instinct could smell a story. I just wish that it could have smelled the part that was inedible.

After Cho's avatar disappeared I made sure to bathe quickly and get on the A-mono as soon as I could.

I got there a full hour before I was supposed to meet him so I walked around. The regular business of the area had full returned now that Holiday had been over for more than a few days. I tried to reenact the events of the days earlier. I stood on the spot where I confronted the mysterious man. I eyed the same rolling bumps that made Future Park so interesting. I looked back at the ground the strange man must have been standing on.

I wondered what he had meant. Consequences.

I glanced up and saw a transport ship coming in from the West Quad. It looked beautiful against the sun. I'd seen a thousand of those transports come in to dock at the spaceport as a kid. In all these years, they hadn't altered a single thing about the way that flight in from the West Quad worked. Same flight plan, same speed, I could even predict right where the transport ship would slow down on it's approach to the airlock.

This time I watched, mildly perplexed as the transport, capable of holding up to three-thousand, or so, passengers, failed to slow down to make its approach.

In fact, I am nearly certain that it sped up as it approached.

But it didn't stop...

It smashed into the spaceport and sent a fireball into the park that engulfed nearly everyone I could see. I narrowly escaped it myself.

Debris flew everywhere.

Metal, plastic, bodies...

...

Just then I felt a hand grab my upper arm.

"Thank god you're early!"

I looked over and saw the old-man face of Van Bush.

"Come on! We've got to take advantage of this chaos and get out of here!"

I was in a daze. I just did what he told me.

Before I knew it we were moving through a tunnel someplace. I'm not sure how we got there. I guessed it was a maintenance tunnel for the mono, but it was so dirty and disgusting I wasn't sure. Yes, these are the things you think about while fighting back the feelings of horror.

What's worse is...

Once we got where we were going, I felt my smartBox shifting around in my pocket. I pulled it out and held it up. It formed the avatar of my father-in-law.

"Jim, I'm afraid I've... uh... I've got some horrible news."

I was silent. He went on.

"Ande... she, uh, she wanted to surprise you..."

My chest tightened--it's tightening again.

Writing this was supposed to be therapy.

It's not working...

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