I had a dream a few nights ago and a new world spawned in my noggin. Today I did a little work on the first of a series of shorts. Let me know if the beginning intrigues you or not.


Chapter 1


I walked down the dreary street. Smoke hung in the air from the fires burning in the alleys that led back into dark corners filled with those less fortunate than the people who resided in the buildings alongside J Street.
Before the Fall, those in the street would have been rounded up and hauled away in vehicles to be incarcerated. Now, twenty years later, you'd find a better grade of people living in the alleys than the ones inside the buildings. Hell, maybe it wasn't so different, then.
Those that had inhabited the city, twenty years ago were pretty despicable. I know this because I was one of the bastards. How things change.
"Fresh fruit, Mister?" a voice came from my right.
I glanced toward the young girl with an apron full of apples. Then pulled one of the apples from her apron. As I polished the apple on the lapel of my long coat, I listened for the tell-tale buzz from my rad marker. There was no buzz so I handed the girl a coin.
"Wow," she said, "Is that an Old World coin?"
"They called em quarters," I answered. "Worth twenty Scripts. Take that and hide it well. There's a grocery store over on K Street. He'll change it for ya. He's good people."
She pulled a bag from her pocket and dropped the rest of the apples into it. She handed it to me.
"Mister, that's ten times the worth of the whole bunch," she said, "Thank you."
She slipped the quarter into a pocket and disappeared into the crowd.
I continued my trek down J Street. I couldn't spread too many of the coins I had found around too quickly. I had many more where that one had come from but, if word got out I was spending a lot of Old World coins, one of the Warlords would surely come down on me.
It didn't hurt to help the people around me when I could, as well. Most of the good will I had around the city had come from similar acts. Those on the street didn't have much and when I helped them, they would remember. There will be a time I'll need help and there are quite a few people who will remember.
J Street crossed Third Avenue ahead of me and my destination wasn't far down Third. There was a bar called the Strike Zone there. My contact had said he had a man who wanted to meet with me about a job. I tended to use the Strike Zone as a meeting place for potential customers.
I had helped the owner find his kidnapped wife eight years ago and he kept a booth unoccupied for me to use at any time. Good will is a priceless commodity in a Fallen world.
I came within view of the bar and there were crowds of people waiting to enter. Some things never change. People search for escape from reality in any world, Fallen or not.
The doorman nodded as I strode past the line of waiting patrons, some of which yelled in anger.
"Kade," he said as I reached him, "Welcome, as always. You're booth is clear and there is a guest awaiting your arrival."
"Thanks Sam," I said and walked into the noisy, smoke filled room.
I made my way across the large room full of dancing men and women. The music pounded some sort of digital created music from the Old World. I had found a stash several years back of several kinds of Old World music discs. I traded most of the discs for a player to Jared Mcknight, the owner of Strike Zone. I had kept a small collection of a style of music called Blues. I liked the Old World Blues music. Most of the rest had been dance music of some sort or another. Some digital, some of what they had called Country, R&B, Hip-Hop. I didn't care for most of those.
The Old World music had brought crowds of people into Strike Zone and Jared had been making money, hand over fist. Then the local Warlord had stepped in and began taxing Jared to keep his bar open. Now Jared made enough to get by but not much more.
"Kade!" Jared's voice boomed across the room.
I looked to my right to see Jared waving at me. He was pushing through the crowd, toward me.
"Mathew Kade," He said with a huge smile, "A sight for sore eyes!"
"How are ya, Jared?" I asked.
"Could be better, but I'm still here."
"How's Jenny?"
"Pregnant."
"Really?" I said with a smile, "Congratulations, my friend!"
"Thanks, Kade," he said. "It never woulda happened without you."
"I'm pretty sure I didn't have anything to do with that."
His laugh boomed across the room again.
"True enough," he said, "But you found her for me, Kade. I can never thank you enough for that. And now I'm about to be a father."
"You deserve it, man," I said, "Take good care of em."
"Will do," he said, "I'll be by your table in a few. Had a little episode we have to deal with. Someone didn’t like my reservation policy."
"I'll talk to ya then," I said and made my way to the booth in the back that was conspicuously empty.
As I slid into the booth, I could see two people with an interest in me. One was an older gentleman in an old suit. The other was a young man who had a perpetual snarl on his face.
I motioned to the older gentleman and he made his way toward my booth.
"Mathew Kade," I said with my hand outstretched, "I understand you have a job for me?"
"Yes I do," he said, "My name is Cedric Hale. I need you to find my daughter for me. She disappeared three days ago and I haven't been able to find a single clue as to where she has gone."
I motioned for him to have a seat
"What made you search me out for this job?"
"I worked for a company called Obsidian," he said.
My eyes narrowed.
"I'm not here to let your secret out, Mr Kade," he said. "I know what you were. I know what happened to you. It's amazing that you were able to rebuild your psyche into something more than a drooling vegetable. Yet you did. You have the skills to find my daughter, no matter where she is."
"You know a lot about me, Hale," I said, "and I'm not very comfortable with that."
"When the end came, I know you were still in the Imprinter and it scrambled your brain," he said, "I also know, you spent three years inside the Obsidian building, under treatment for serious mental illness. No one even knows how you did it, Mr Kade. Treatment did nothing and then one day you just stood up and became Mathew Kade."
"I'm not here to blackmail you or any such nonsense," he said, "I just know what you were capable of before the Fall. If you have a fraction of that capability, you can find my daughter."
A commotion on the floor caught my eye and a bottle was hurled across the room. I was on my feet and caught the bottle in my left hand.
For just a second, I was someone else. The young man with the perpetual snarl was staring into the cold dead eyes of someone, entirely different from the man that had sat at the table. His eyes widened in fear and he ran into the crowd.
In a moment I sat back down.
Hale was smiling, "A fraction."
I stared at him in silence.
He placed a coin in front of me. I looked at it in surprise. It was a solid gold coin from the Old World. Probably worth ten thousand script now.
"This is a down payment," Hale said, "You find her, you get another. Return her to me unharmed, you get three."
"I'll see what I can do."
"Thank you, Agent," he said softly.
I nodded.