Post by Aedh on Dec 9, 2009 9:34:35 GMT -5
Here it is! For you QC/NMAL fans it is a little side treat, separate from the saga itself but borrowing some of the characters. For those who have not read any of "Queen City," this is a sort of 'sampler' of what the main story is like.
Queen City Christmas (Part One)
The Tacoma Mudflats were humming this night. Vehicles filled the parking lots and hundreds of people were arriving every hour, by shuttle from the train, by bus--any way they could. Inside the stadium, the crowd was growing. This was not just any rock concert--this was the homecoming of the Bangers Of Death Tour, featuring Better Off Dead, Urination, and of course tiamat69. And it was--by design--happening on December twenty-fourth. Holiday Eve. But that didn’t matter so much to Marcus as that he find some tickets. He’d promised Brionne, a gift for her as she was very pregnant, and her due date was four weeks away. But the ‘Net site had sold out of tickets within an hour—an hour while he’d been out trying to find some work. Some day that had been. He’d not gotten work and he’d lost out on the tickets, too. So his only hope was to get some from someone else, a scalper. He’d driven them down here in his rickety old gas-powered van, thirty-five hair-raising miles from Queen City down the remains of Highway 99. Interstate Five was closed to anyone who couldn’t pay the tolls to use the lanes still kept in repair, and they were exorbitant. For businesspeople only.
“Tix? tix?” he’d gone around asking anyone standing around, to a solid round of shrugs and shaken heads. Finally, a man had taken him aside quietly.
“Look here,” he’d told Marcus. “Lay off, dude. Don’t get caught with a ticket you didn’t buy legit. They holo your tickets to your credcard. No match, no entry. You won’t find a seller.”
“What makes you so goddamn smart about this?” demanded Marcus despairingly.
For an answer, the man flashed a badge from under the lapel of his fleece vest. “You’re okay,” he said. “Not someone we’re looking for. Let’s keep it like that.”
There was no other way of admission. Tickets were run through automated gateways overseen by security people who knew nothing except to run off anyone whose data didn’t unlock the gate. So he went off to break the bad news to Brionne—they’d have to catch the show via the ‘netcast version.
But Brionne wasn’t worried about the show at all. He found her lying on the mattress, gasping, in the back of the van. “It’s started,” she said. “I thought I’d had contractions—well, I did. Not Braxton-Hicks like you thought. The real deal. They’re coming closer together, and stronger.”
“You can’t have! You’re not due for weeks yet.”
“So, what?” she demanded. “What do goddamn doctors know? Not much! How many of them ever had a baby?”
He half-lay next to her, lights playing on them dimly through the van’s windows, making her round, smooth face look blue and gray by turns. Her hair was straight and moist. She’d been perspiring despite being in a cold van for an hour. “Well, what do we do now?” he said, wrapping his arms around her.
“We gotta get to--damn it!” she said. “I dunno where there’s a birth center around here.” She didn’t mention a hospital. Hospitals meant doctors, which meant testing of the baby and sampling its DNA as well as that of its parents. Marcus punched buttons on his PDA; this was his fault really. With his previous history of drug use, he might be judged UTP, ‘unfit to parent,’ with the result of—at best—confiscation of the baby, and—at worst, if she also got a poor or indifferent assessment--a forced postpartum abortion. So there would be no doctors.
“I found something.” Marcus held up his device. “There’s a birth center in Puyallup.”
“Let’s go, then,” urged Brionne. “I … I—aaaaaahrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrAHH--! oh, gawdammit Marcus, just go, call the damn place for zitssakes and get us out of here!” He punched the numbers through, spoke briefly, then handed the PDA to her and got up into the driver’s seat. He could hear her making arrangements, talking urgently, as he turned the key and worked the fuel lever … to hear a grating sound, and a dull clunk. He tried again, and again as she talked, but to no avail. The motive burner wasn’t getting fuel despite his having half a tank. Something had jammed up or come unglued. They were stuck. “Now what?” she yelled.
“Will they come here?” he called back.
“What the hell--?” she yelled. “Marcus! Goddammit! Don’t lay this shit on meeeeeeEEEeeeEEEEEEEEEEEeeeee …!” He took the device. “Hello? I’m the dad. We’re at C Lot, Space N-79 at the Mudflats.”
“Hello--I’m sorry,” said the voice at the other end. “You would need to call a commercial ambulance service to bring her. We can’t come to you—you understand. Nature of the business.”
He felt his stomach tighten painfully. “What do we do, then?”
“I don’t know,” said the person at the other end. “But if you can’t get her here, whatever you do do, it will have to be without us.”
“Thanks,” he groaned, and ended the call. Then he slammed the PDA against the passenger seat.
“Call security, for zitssakes!” commanded Brionne. “We need help--we need hot water anyway!”
“Event security?” wailed Marcus.
“Any other ideas?”
He shook his head in the darkness, set his jaw, and switched on the van’s dome light, to find the security number on the parking ticket. If anything else could go wrong …
>< >< ><
A few minutes later--not far away—someone clicked a minibutton, standing still in the shadow of a concrete pillar. Two security people had been discussing something quite unforeseen, and interesting.
The listener was monitoring event security for one reason, but this was an opportunity, potentially a valuable one. Other business notwithstanding, the fact that a baby was about to be born in C Lot, presumably in a trailer or van, and certainly with no medical attendance, warranted consideration. Free, unregistered human genetic material didn’t just drop into one’s lap every day.
Waiting for a few moments, listening for signs of the other business that was supposed to be going down soon, the agent decided it was worth looking into. “Hello … security? Yes, about the medical situation with the pregnant young woman. I’m a doctor—yes, I was called by someone who had a call from them. I’m on my way to them now … yes, of course, I will update you with any significant developments. Thank you.”
The ‘doctor’ clicked off and shifted a slim bag on a shoulder strap, feeling under the flap. The laser-fitted Glock automatic pistol was there, with its accessories, and so was the scalpel case … and of course the latex gloves and plastic bags. It paid to be prepared at all times.
>< >< ><
Marcus put down the PDA and wrapped his arms around the girl. “It’s good to know someone’s coming, anyway.” Brionne nodded and said: “It’s a bit of luck a doctor happened to be around here.
“Maybe in attendance at the show.” Marcus stroked her tummy. “I’m sure it’ll be alright. Maybe he’ll bring us luck after all.”
“Maybe,” she smiled. “I did have those dreams about him, remember.” Marcus nodded. “And my mother said he would be a magic child. A wonder boy—ooh! I’m feeling it in front now. They’re stronger, too—aaaaahh!”
They were silent for a moment. Brionne’s mother had died suddenly in the hospital after having gone in for a flu shot—it had been a complication, they had said. Her aunt didn’t believe it and had muttered, Don’t even go near a doctor if you’ve got no money, but what could be done? Nothing; all the paperwork told their version of the story.
“What would you think of naming him Holley, with an ‘E?’” He looked nonplussed. She drove on: “Holley, like Holly, as in Holiday, because this is. The Holiday.”
“Or ‘Chris,’” he said. “I think the holiday was called Chris—something, once. ”
“Weird. Who was Chris?”
“I dunno. I think he was a guy who got really drunk Holiday partying though. Chris Must Heave, I think they used to say.”
“Eww!” She made a face. “I don’t like that Chris. I like Holley better.”
“Holley Day Stewart. I like it,” he smiled. He stroked her arm and thought: If it lives to see daylight.
>< >< ><
>< >< ><
Queen City Christmas (Part One)
The Tacoma Mudflats were humming this night. Vehicles filled the parking lots and hundreds of people were arriving every hour, by shuttle from the train, by bus--any way they could. Inside the stadium, the crowd was growing. This was not just any rock concert--this was the homecoming of the Bangers Of Death Tour, featuring Better Off Dead, Urination, and of course tiamat69. And it was--by design--happening on December twenty-fourth. Holiday Eve. But that didn’t matter so much to Marcus as that he find some tickets. He’d promised Brionne, a gift for her as she was very pregnant, and her due date was four weeks away. But the ‘Net site had sold out of tickets within an hour—an hour while he’d been out trying to find some work. Some day that had been. He’d not gotten work and he’d lost out on the tickets, too. So his only hope was to get some from someone else, a scalper. He’d driven them down here in his rickety old gas-powered van, thirty-five hair-raising miles from Queen City down the remains of Highway 99. Interstate Five was closed to anyone who couldn’t pay the tolls to use the lanes still kept in repair, and they were exorbitant. For businesspeople only.
“Tix? tix?” he’d gone around asking anyone standing around, to a solid round of shrugs and shaken heads. Finally, a man had taken him aside quietly.
“Look here,” he’d told Marcus. “Lay off, dude. Don’t get caught with a ticket you didn’t buy legit. They holo your tickets to your credcard. No match, no entry. You won’t find a seller.”
“What makes you so goddamn smart about this?” demanded Marcus despairingly.
For an answer, the man flashed a badge from under the lapel of his fleece vest. “You’re okay,” he said. “Not someone we’re looking for. Let’s keep it like that.”
There was no other way of admission. Tickets were run through automated gateways overseen by security people who knew nothing except to run off anyone whose data didn’t unlock the gate. So he went off to break the bad news to Brionne—they’d have to catch the show via the ‘netcast version.
But Brionne wasn’t worried about the show at all. He found her lying on the mattress, gasping, in the back of the van. “It’s started,” she said. “I thought I’d had contractions—well, I did. Not Braxton-Hicks like you thought. The real deal. They’re coming closer together, and stronger.”
“You can’t have! You’re not due for weeks yet.”
“So, what?” she demanded. “What do goddamn doctors know? Not much! How many of them ever had a baby?”
He half-lay next to her, lights playing on them dimly through the van’s windows, making her round, smooth face look blue and gray by turns. Her hair was straight and moist. She’d been perspiring despite being in a cold van for an hour. “Well, what do we do now?” he said, wrapping his arms around her.
“We gotta get to--damn it!” she said. “I dunno where there’s a birth center around here.” She didn’t mention a hospital. Hospitals meant doctors, which meant testing of the baby and sampling its DNA as well as that of its parents. Marcus punched buttons on his PDA; this was his fault really. With his previous history of drug use, he might be judged UTP, ‘unfit to parent,’ with the result of—at best—confiscation of the baby, and—at worst, if she also got a poor or indifferent assessment--a forced postpartum abortion. So there would be no doctors.
“I found something.” Marcus held up his device. “There’s a birth center in Puyallup.”
“Let’s go, then,” urged Brionne. “I … I—aaaaaahrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrAHH--! oh, gawdammit Marcus, just go, call the damn place for zitssakes and get us out of here!” He punched the numbers through, spoke briefly, then handed the PDA to her and got up into the driver’s seat. He could hear her making arrangements, talking urgently, as he turned the key and worked the fuel lever … to hear a grating sound, and a dull clunk. He tried again, and again as she talked, but to no avail. The motive burner wasn’t getting fuel despite his having half a tank. Something had jammed up or come unglued. They were stuck. “Now what?” she yelled.
“Will they come here?” he called back.
“What the hell--?” she yelled. “Marcus! Goddammit! Don’t lay this shit on meeeeeeEEEeeeEEEEEEEEEEEeeeee …!” He took the device. “Hello? I’m the dad. We’re at C Lot, Space N-79 at the Mudflats.”
“Hello--I’m sorry,” said the voice at the other end. “You would need to call a commercial ambulance service to bring her. We can’t come to you—you understand. Nature of the business.”
He felt his stomach tighten painfully. “What do we do, then?”
“I don’t know,” said the person at the other end. “But if you can’t get her here, whatever you do do, it will have to be without us.”
“Thanks,” he groaned, and ended the call. Then he slammed the PDA against the passenger seat.
“Call security, for zitssakes!” commanded Brionne. “We need help--we need hot water anyway!”
“Event security?” wailed Marcus.
“Any other ideas?”
He shook his head in the darkness, set his jaw, and switched on the van’s dome light, to find the security number on the parking ticket. If anything else could go wrong …
>< >< ><
A few minutes later--not far away—someone clicked a minibutton, standing still in the shadow of a concrete pillar. Two security people had been discussing something quite unforeseen, and interesting.
The listener was monitoring event security for one reason, but this was an opportunity, potentially a valuable one. Other business notwithstanding, the fact that a baby was about to be born in C Lot, presumably in a trailer or van, and certainly with no medical attendance, warranted consideration. Free, unregistered human genetic material didn’t just drop into one’s lap every day.
Waiting for a few moments, listening for signs of the other business that was supposed to be going down soon, the agent decided it was worth looking into. “Hello … security? Yes, about the medical situation with the pregnant young woman. I’m a doctor—yes, I was called by someone who had a call from them. I’m on my way to them now … yes, of course, I will update you with any significant developments. Thank you.”
The ‘doctor’ clicked off and shifted a slim bag on a shoulder strap, feeling under the flap. The laser-fitted Glock automatic pistol was there, with its accessories, and so was the scalpel case … and of course the latex gloves and plastic bags. It paid to be prepared at all times.
>< >< ><
Marcus put down the PDA and wrapped his arms around the girl. “It’s good to know someone’s coming, anyway.” Brionne nodded and said: “It’s a bit of luck a doctor happened to be around here.
“Maybe in attendance at the show.” Marcus stroked her tummy. “I’m sure it’ll be alright. Maybe he’ll bring us luck after all.”
“Maybe,” she smiled. “I did have those dreams about him, remember.” Marcus nodded. “And my mother said he would be a magic child. A wonder boy—ooh! I’m feeling it in front now. They’re stronger, too—aaaaahh!”
They were silent for a moment. Brionne’s mother had died suddenly in the hospital after having gone in for a flu shot—it had been a complication, they had said. Her aunt didn’t believe it and had muttered, Don’t even go near a doctor if you’ve got no money, but what could be done? Nothing; all the paperwork told their version of the story.
“What would you think of naming him Holley, with an ‘E?’” He looked nonplussed. She drove on: “Holley, like Holly, as in Holiday, because this is. The Holiday.”
“Or ‘Chris,’” he said. “I think the holiday was called Chris—something, once. ”
“Weird. Who was Chris?”
“I dunno. I think he was a guy who got really drunk Holiday partying though. Chris Must Heave, I think they used to say.”
“Eww!” She made a face. “I don’t like that Chris. I like Holley better.”
“Holley Day Stewart. I like it,” he smiled. He stroked her arm and thought: If it lives to see daylight.
>< >< ><
>< >< ><