The New City

Prologue

'New city', a desolate stinking slum at its worst, a place akin to
heaven at its best. A place both a playground for the rich and famous,
and home to some of the poorest people on the planet 'Heroso', a
Japanese (plutonian dialect) word meaning roughly 'utopia', in the
'Naylor' sector. The sector was founded as a Terran colony during the
brief Rein of 'Peter the 5th' over earth the Terran sector and all her
dominions. 'Heroso' being the capital planet, the very first to be
landed by the legendary 'Alexan`dren`fas Bowen', the colony, sector,
planet and City founder. Although such fanciful historic tales are now
only distant, half remembered thoughts in even the oldest inhabitants
of 'Heroso'. All the great statues to his honour were torn down to make
room for modern buildings or new developments long ago. In some ways,
it is a planet like any other under earth's great dominion. A series of
corrupt leaders, many corrupt civil servants serving a planet whose
very infrastructure creaks at the seams and threatens to collapse in on
its self, a planet with a class division A thousand miles wide.
However, within this planet, there are characters; people who stand out
from the hustle and bustle of a thousand billion souls, or deliberately
do not, as the case may be. One of these characters, as we are to
discover, is Corvus Blackstone. Corvus had had an upbringing that
certainly made an impact on his later life. He was born the
illegitimate son of a daughter, Helena Blackstone, of a wealthy
off-planet merchant, the improbably named Maximus Blackstone, and an
amorous attendant to the Heroso Royal barge, known only as Bert. The
Blackstone merchant clan had held the planet Heroso in their grip for
many generations, keeping control of the trade between the planet and
the rest of the system from their giant trade barges in constant orbit.
In return for this leeching, the planet supposedly received protection.
Bert was hopeless fool, whose father was also an attendant to the Royal
barge, and his father before him and so on. For Bert and Helena, it was
a terribly romantic whirlwind romance, for Helena's family it was
terrible disaster, and for Bert's family it was incredibly funny. They
named there secret child Corvus, because Helena was rather morbid and a
fan of the occult. Then they ran away, hoping to settle down and live
in obscurity together in to old age, but, being only a fool and a silly
girl in a black dress, they didn't get far at all. For two weeks, they
hid in a hotel room with some money Helena had stolen from her father.
When they were found, they hid Corvus in a cupboard. Helena was taken
back to her clan's merchant barge and mourned the loss of her first
love and child for almost three days before finding something else to
be interested in and changing her favourite colour to pink. Bert was
locked up by Helena's father and whilst imprisoned hung himself. Helena
did not bother to attend his modest funeral. Corvus was eventually
found by a 58 year old maid who snuck him back to her small flat and
adopted him for her own. The woman suffered from Alzheimer's and had a
mild form of schizophrenia. Corvus spent the first six years of his
life growing up in the old woman's flat, which was a treasure trove of
bizarre things that she gathered together and collected from wherever
she could. Helena had left a desperately depressing and long-winded
note about Corvus in his carry basket that had explained, rather
melodramatically, who he was. Until he was discovered by a care
visitor, Corvus was looked after by this old woman as if he was her
own, which is what she often believed. After that, Corvus spent one
year in a care home where he was responsible for the deaths of two
children and the serious injuries of five. He was utterly maladjusted
and seemed to confront the situations he found himself in with
self-defined version of cold logic. For a further two years, he was
moved between care homes and continued to baffle many councillors and
psychiatrists with his disturbing behaviour, before being moved to the
medium security wing of a mental institute. On his fifteenth birthday,
he escaped and disappeared from society, living with street gangs,
hackers and phreaks in clandestine organizations. Eventually, he
deleted himself from the records and removed any proof of his
existence, becoming a ghost in the world of the living.
Corvus was six feet one inches tall, and very thin, almost slender in
build. His hair was black, and shoulder length, with several tight
braids in places. He had a long, thin face with sharp features. His
eyes were grey pools of whirling mist, in which one might lose their
thoughts. He wore a monocle over his right eye with a chain hanging
down to his left breast pocket. On his back was an ornate leather
sheath that housed his broadsword, and in a holster concealed under his
jacket was a magnum 44.

CHAPTER 1: Underworld

He was a portly man with a large face and pink, sweaty skin. He had
short-cropped oily hair but gave the impression someone you would not
want to mess with. At this moment, he was walking down '354,79 and 0',
a ground level zone in 'just another slump district', to visit the
scene of 'just another murder'. The area was tough, but he had on his
'smithy', a bullet proof, knife proof, flame retardant vest, underneath
his white shirt (no tie) and long brown raincoat and was armed with
standard issue 'Stemlok' pistol. "This ain't my day," muttered
detective Albert Johnson to himself as he forced open the door of the
module and stepped inside. At once he noticed the signs of a fight, it
wasn't too long before he found the body, a small white male,
approximately 20 years old, his right arm gratuitously hewn off, a gun
still locked in his dead fingers and a bullet wound to his head. It was
very recent, the detective deduced, and whoever had done it was
obviously in the middle of cleaning up. This set him on edge, what if
the killer was still nearby.
"What have we here?" The detective poked around the bedside cabinet of
the late Mr. James Smith.
"One alarm clock, stopped." He noted. "A piece of paper, with cam-phone
number." he drummed the fingers of his left hand against the side of
his palm-top computer, as if thinking hard, then noted that down as
well.
"What have we here?" a voice mimicked the detective mockingly. The
detective swung round, his long coat knocking everything from the top
of the bedside cabinet.
"What? Wh-whos there?" he stammered.
The clock lay broken against the floor, pieces scattered this way and
that.
"A stopped alarm clock." the voice came again. Still the detective
could not work out the source of the voice, he stumbled once and stood
stock still, now in the centre of the room.
"A piece of pa..." just as the mocking voice began again the detective
took his chance and made to draw his gun, but before his hand had met
the handle, a great broadsword swung to meet his neck, slice into it,
and pass out the other side.
"Never, try to pull a gun on Corvus Blackstone!" he chuckled grimly to
himself as the blood from the corpse's neck spilled onto the module
floor. Corvus was something of an eccentric of the time. While other
men relied on guns, machine pistols and such like, Corvus carried a
6-foot claymore-style broadsword and Magnum, a bizarre quirk in
anybody's book, which he wielded in service of others, e.g. the highest
bidder, and for his own gains. Corvus was not a lunatic; indeed, he was
frighteningly sane for one of his calibre, a born callous killer on a
'survival of the fittest' world.
Corvus moved through the back streets that night and took all the usual
precautions not to be followed. He was but a blur in the shadows and
passed unseen as he travelled. He stalked the alleys onwards towards
his block through dark dank passages where rats and evil dwelt and the
pungent smell of decay hung heavy in the air. He had to tell 'The Kin'
that he had carried out there little job, and cleared up the lose ends.
He knew no one would find the bodies for a while yet and he would be
hidden by then anyway. He had not known or known of the person he was
told to kill, only that the dumb bastard had got on the wrong side of
'The Kin'. Not a good idea. He had done his job, and was going to
collect the other half of his payment, but first he had to return to
his current module, and burn it down. He slipped unnoticed from a side
street and on to the pavement of the main road. The walked up to the
front hatch of his module and inserted his card, the times of his
comings and goings would have been easily available by computer at the
police database, had his card not been tampered with to log his entry
as 4 hours before, giving him an alibi for the time of the
assassination. A quite unnecessary precaution since he was about to set
fire to the module and the pseudonym it was rented by would no longer
exist. Nevertheless, he liked to cover his back. The block was tall and
wide and made of dull grey fibreglass modules that were lifted in to
place around a central concrete stairwell. That was how the City coped
with overcrowding, cheap modular housing, there safety was dubious and
they were not pleasant places in which to live. He had had no contact
with any other residents of the module block, and so, had not needed to
kill any of them. A fact witch, in his own way, Corvus felt quite proud
of. He had already made preparations and all that was left was to set
the timer. This he did. He gathered any possessions he needed and made
a final check of the module. He left and five minuets after his
departure the street was filled with the scream and noise of fire
control robots, manned ambulances and the bustle of a gathering crowd
of locals and pickpockets.
He was to meet the kin in some kind of old sub-terainian warehouse that
used to hold maintenance equipment of some sort but was now disused. He
didn't do work for the Kin too often so as not to become entangled in
any of there gang wars that he knew raged throughout the city. However,
he often he did their 'well paid' dirty work. Although the meeting
place was underground, the only entrance that the Kin would tell him of
was in through the roof of an old water system pump station and down
through in to the basement where tunnels led to the warehouse. As he
approached the pump station, he could see the quite intricate stonework
in place around the roof, eaten away by acid rain, cracked, and fallen
in places. The grand old station was surrounded by a high, rusty, chain
link fence topped with patchy razor wire. In one place there was a gate
in the fence that hung open and swinging in the breeze upon its hinges,
sending out faint but strange screeches that seemed to chill the air
and make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Undaunted, Corvus
strode forward across the cracked tarmac court and passed swiftly in
through the gate, closing it behind him. He surveyed the station and
walked around its perimeter once, he found no entrance on the ground
floor, but there was a fire ladder high up on the north wall. He
gathered old boxes and crates that lay scattered around the gate and
used them to give him height enough to grasp the lowest rung and pull
himself up towards the roof. When he had reached the top he sat upon
the roofs edge and rested a while, surveying the scene. The roof was
flat, square, and large, and in its centre, set flat in to the floor,
there was a door with a lock but no handle. The roof was obviously old,
dangerous and covered in places that looked unsafe to tread, and pools
of slimy collected rainwater that one might slip and fall in. Carefully
and slowly he made his way towards the door, with a few heart-stopping
moments along the way. When, finally, he reached the door he looked in
puzzlement at it for a while, it seemed that it was not designed to be
opened from the outside. He drew his Magnum and shot at the lock, it
was an unwise but very effective solution to the problem and the old
door swung downwards with a crash, broke from its hinges, and plummeted
down in to the darkness. Corvus counted two and a half seconds before
it hit the floor. He did a rough calculation and guessed it was about a
six-meter drop. His last thought as he swung down in to the black was
that he hoped he was correct. The drop was gut wrenching, but he felt
ok afterwards, managing to brace himself just in time before the land.
The echo sounded of in to the air, returning to his ears several times
before dissipating once more in to silence. His eyes began to slowly
adjust to the gloom and shapes loomed out of the grey that he
recognized as pipes that struck back and forth across the walls of the
room. Getting to the meeting place from there was quite simple, he made
his way downwards through the stairwells and walkways and stuffy, damp
air of the station. Following the remembered instructions of the Kin he
finally made his way to the underground warehouse and found himself
standing in front of the Kin leader.
"So, ya do it?" said the Kin leader, slightly more nervously than he
probably should have. The man was bald, but it strangely suited him. He
wore an expressionless face and had a cold, unsettling stare. He stood
rather awkwardly and was crowded by a group of nasty looking thugs. He
resembled the father in a hellish parody of a family photo.
"Don't worry. I did exactly as you said"
"Whose worrying?" shouted some young thug in the group.
"Were not scared a you an ya stupid sword" The youth was clearly
terrified. Perhaps he had heard the wildly exaggerated tales that
circulated about Corvus in these parts. He was a newbie, and the leader
was not happy to have him hanging around, it was clear in the
embarrassed wince he gave as the boy spoke. The others in the group
were staying cool; this one was losing his head.
"What happens if someone pulls a gun on ya eh?" he shouted, the others
looked nervous but did nothing.
"Like this...." Corvus knew what was coming and knew he was to far away
to use his sword. He had seen the thug's fingers twitch a split second
before he went for his gun and had his hand on his magnum before he had
done so. As the thug's hand reached the handle of his gun, Corvus had
fired, and a split second after that, he was dead. A hole the size of a
one-credit piece in his forehead, the back of his skull exploded beyond
recognition.
"That happens." said Corvus grimly. The corpse toppled to the hard
stone floor. A murmur went up from the group.
"Quiet." said the leader. "You did us all a favour there, thanks"
"Think nothing of it. Now to the payment."
"Its in a bank account under your current pseudonym in the second
district."
"A problem there I am afraid. My pseudonym no longer exists. He died in
an unexplained fire about an hour ago."
"Ah dam. Simmo," he called "go and make the appropriate
arrangements."
"Uh-yea, boss." A tall, thin man wearing an ill-fitting tuxedo and top
hat, looking very uncomfortable, walked briskly from the hall, through
a set of large old swing doors. Some distant talking was heard and two
men walked in and dragged away the bloody body of the young thug.
"I'll se ya soon mister Blackstone, here is the card with the back-up
meeting point and time, see you then. I'm sad to see you were
correct."
This arrangement of a back-up meeting point was only even considered at
the strong insistence of Corvus, and him being able to persuade the Kin
of the need for one in the first place. This would give them time to
move the money to a new account or to find it in cash. Either way he
did not mind.
"See you then." Corvus replied. And left the where house as swiftly as
he could.
"He's no good boss. Don't trust him as far as you could throw
him."
"He's also the best there is, I wouldn't trust no delicate jobs to any'
a you's clowns." He scowled and stood up. The group of thugs made ready
to move.
"You." He pointed to one. "Take someone else and go check the place
before we leave, and clear that blood. The rest of you follow
me?"

CHAPTER 2: Overworld.

"Not found." The cold computer voice patiently told him again. He had
tried every method, legal or otherwise, he could think of to track down
the man he was looking for. So far, he had only been checking through
city data-files and entry-logs, but all his searches had been
fruitless. He sat back on his large, leather office chair and poked one
of the executive toys on his large polished wooden desk, it swung back
and forth amusingly, but he was not interested. He swung the chair
round to face the window behind him, which currently showed a view of a
summer glade, teaming with wildlife and full of trees and plants.
"Reveal." He commanded. The view evaporated to show the actual view of
the outside world. The sound of pleasant birdsong was cut short. The
view was from high up on a skyscraper, and looked out over the brown
cloud layer, with similar distant peaks protruding through in places.
Witton Creer felt safe in his office suite at the top of his tall tower
he hardly ever left, protected by bodyguards and security drones,
looking out from behind the reassuringly thick glass of his window. He
felt like a god, and he practically was. Which is why he felt
particularly annoyed at the thought of someone being out of his reach.
If there was somebody Mr. Creer wanted dead, that somebody died. He was
a tall, slim man with dark, hollow eyes and thin, sharp face. He had
neat, black hair and wore a professional looking, expensive business
suit. He moved in a swift and precise way and spoke similarly.
"Call" He said. A small panel began to rise out of the desk where
before it had appeared to be a solid surface. It spun slowly over to
reveal a touch screen monitor.
"Code 34k5h62. Channel two."
The desk bleeped several times. "Channel three."
"Yes Mr. Creer."
"Are channels two and three secure?"
"Yes sir."
"Channel two. Get me Mr. Kinoto Kinwaschi."
Recorded voice: "Please wait while we connect you?"
"What what what? What business have you waking me at this hour?"
"My apologies Mr. Kinwaschi. I am in need of your?" He paused to think
of the correct word. ".. Unique services." He continued.
"Can't it wait till morning?"
"Oh dear, oh dear. You know me better than that. Don't you? You
certainly know me well enough not to try my patience."
"Yes Mr. Creer." He said, showing considerable restraint.
"That's better. Now, I need you to find somebody for me."
"Another one of those jobs!" He sneered.
"Well Mr. Kinwaschi, that is your profession, and it is what you are
good at."
"Of course. But your jobs are never easy and I will command a higher
fee for my hard work this time!"
"Payment shall, of course, be arranged soon. I need you to find a
certain Mr. Corvus Blackstone and either kill him, or deliver him to
me. Your reward will be greater if you can bring him to me
alive."
Kinoto pondered this for a few moments, and then replied.
"I accept the contract."
"Good."

CHAPTER 3: Preconditions.

The office of Mr. Creer was now quiet, the lights were dimmed and the
ceiling fan whirred at an almost inaudible pace far above the room. He
sat in his large swivel chair facing the window, his cold eyes now
shielded against the glare of the setting sun that bathed the office in
red light, by his fallen grey eyelids. He appeared to be asleep but
that was only half true. He sat in thought and set his mind to work on
the task at hand?.

Mr. Kinwaschi was a master assassin. He sat at the centre of the City
like a poisonous spider at the centre of its web. He was an oriental
man, short and slight of build. He was also quick to work, putting out
a trace on his target's name straight away. He expected to find
nothing; he knew that Corvus was a fellow professional, but certain
protocols had to be followed. Within fifteen minutes of his talk with
Witton Creer he had spoken with several Underworld contacts and the
information gathering process began. Within the hour, he had assembled
a team to begin the hunt?.

"Somebody trying to find me" Corvus mumbled to himself as he tapped
away at his palmtop. He was kneeling by a broken open
telecommunications box in the dingy back alley of a sheltered housing
block. It was almost dawn, and it was raining. The palmtop was
connected to a number of points in the box. He knew it would not be
long before someone at the Corporation noticed the little 'Error' flash
on his computer and worked out what was happening. He had a tap on
every line and had hacked into the Corporations network. He would know
when he had outstayed his welcome, but for now, he had things to find
out?.

The police department changed its shifts and prepared for the Monday
slog through the backlog of paperwork and unsolved crimes and an
onslaught of utter chaos.
Detective John Dawn arrives home early from a long nightshift and
slumps down in to his chair. He reaches lazily out to his left and
grabs at a small bottle of vodka on the table next to him. Then, he
pulls a hip flask from the inside pocket of his jacket and deftly
unscrews the lid, empties the last few drops in to his dry mouth and
refills the flask from the bottle. After returning the flask to his
pocket he wraps himself up in his long jacket, pulls his black, brimmed
hat down over his face and sinks even further down in to his chair,
where he falls in to an uneasy, exhausted sleep.

Cornelius Winterstorm, Grand Constable of the Heroso Royal Troopers
(Unofficial), was sitting down to breakfast. He was, at this moment, in
his second home, a mansion in a fashionable sector of the northern
upper quarter. Which was also where he chose to keep his mistress, a
beautiful nineteen year old from one of the outer lying worlds, they
didn't even speak the same language, which suited Cornelius well. The
relationship was obscene by reasonable standards, Cornelius being well
over one hundred and thirty years old, sustained only by the wonders of
modern science, and an incredibly copious wallet. Despite the frailties
of the body, he was still able, a rogue at heart, and a fierce man, not
to be underestimated. He was sitting, fully dressed in ceremonial garb,
at an enormous oak, feasting table, with gothic style arching legs and
lions paw feet, upon which was spread a mighty range of foods. The
ceremonial garb consisted of a bright red military tunic with gold
embroidered detail, a left breast adorned with a clutch of important
looking medals. A giant, obsidian shoulder plate, with small quartz
studs indented to form a complex swirling pattern that glinted
wonderfully as he moved under the lights. On the index finger of the
white-gloved left hand was a single plain gold ring. On each finger of
the black-gloved right hand was an ornate ring of a different metal,
one of gold, one of silver, one of platinum, one of brass and one of
iron. Over his back hung a long, dark green velvet cloak and at his
waist hung an old Heroso duelling sword. He wore a pair of white riding
jodhpurs and on his feet a set of sturdy old boots, well polished.
Poking from the neck of this costume was the bald head of an old, old
man, with hooded eyes and pale skin stretched across his strong bones.
He possessed a great pair of bushy, long silver eyebrows and a large
goatee beard that stretched almost to the floor when he sat. He had a
habit of peering at things and blinking strongly often, and his right
leg almost constantly twitched. The hall in which he sat matched the
odd mixed style of his ceremonial dress. On the walls hung mock
tapestries of family legends and successes, The signing of the Talamart
contract and The defeat of the Old System Barons, along with some
relating to the Alexan`dren`fas Bowen landings. Opposite him sat
Sophie, or so he called her, "My Sophie dear". She had long hair as
black as shining night that hung untied down her gently curving back,
and wide eyes the colour of coastline chalk that glowed ever so
slightly whenever she talked. She wore a paper-thin cotton dress, of
one piece, that covered her from neck to wrists and draped along the
floor, following her gently flowing, delicate movements and the
contours of her beautiful body.

A new day dawned over the smog and noise of New City. At this time even
the highest reaches of the skyscrapers did not peak over the top of the
acidic, brown clouds that hung thickly blanketing all. Down in the
deepest parts of the city, no warmth of sunlight would reach until at
least noon and the topmost layers of smog had burned away in to the
upper atmosphere. Even when it did, the feeble rays would only serve to
torment those that dwelt there and burn their pale and sensitive skin
with potent ultra-violet light. So vast was New City that it occupied
almost four different time zones and dawn would not appear on its other
side for at least one hour yet where stars still blinked, unseen.
Traffic rumbled and roamed through the clogged arteries of the
suspended motorways and roads that weaved there way at different
heights through the forests of tall buildings. So complex was the city
that standard two-dimensional maps had long been rendered obsolete and
all motor vehicles were required by law to have at least a basic
navigational computer with up to date information on the current roads.
News reports told weekly of people lost for days amongst the streaming
traffic. The very rich owned aircraft such as helicopters to transport
themselves above the crowds, but due to the almost permanent smog witch
hung in the air, this method of transport was notoriously perilous and
had claimed many, many lives. The use of aircraft within the City
boundary was on the verge of being prohibited. At this time, as the sun
rose higher in to the sky and the whole city from edge to edge was
bathed in its pale orange glow, a few helicopters could be seen beating
there way cautiously and gracefully through the heights and towering
spires of the City towards important business meetings and morning
briefings. For the most part however, the travelling done in the City
could not be seen by looking out on to it, but by looking inside its
vast skyscrapers. The majority of the people in New City lived in the
buildings they worked in, shopped in, and sent their children to school
in, because each tower was a micro-city in it's self. A family could
spend their whole lives and never leave their building. If they needed
food, or anything else, floors 185-187 were a shopping centre. If they
needed medical help, floor 280 was a casualty department and 281-184
was a hospital, and so on. This was how life was for middle classes of
New City. So as the people began there working day amid the hustle and
bustle and the whole City rose up for another day, the opening moves of
our characters began to make themselves apparent.

CHAPTER 4: The Game of Kings.

Corvus awoke to the sound of automatic gunfire, a crackling sound like
popping corn. Foolishly, he dragged himself out of bed and went to the
window. As he drew back the curtain, a bullet ricochets off the
plastiglass window and sent long cracks shattering out from the hit. He
was lucky, it did not shatter completely this time, but he knew it
wouldn't take another shot. He ducked and went to the next window,
slowly, he raised his head above the sill. At first, in an early
morning fit of egotistical paranoia, he presumed the bullets were for
him, but looking out on to the street below, he could see a pitched
battle taking place. At one end of the street, clad in black suits
embroidered with gold and wearing black, peaked, military caps were a
troop of Royalist vigilantes. Their officer sat in an open topped,
racing green, vintage sports car, revolver in one hand, wine bottle in
the other, shouting orders and loosing of shots. The royalist troops
sported fully automatic machine pistols, and were scattered across the
street behind makeshift barricades of debris. Amid the Royalist lines,
ignoring the raging fire fight, paced a tall butler with a tray of
drinks, offering them to the immaculately dressed men, who would stop
shooting, put down there guns, sip there drinks and then resume the
carnage. From the back of a large black military truck boomed
Beethoven's ninth symphony, a chilling counterpoint to the scream of
dying women and children. At the other end of the street, was a shabby
looking rabble of old men, women shielding screaming children,
interspersed with punks throwing stones and wielding improvised clubs.
A couple had guns, and fired back at the Royalist lines. A rebellious
chant rose up out of the blaring, tinny, rock music from little
stereos: "DOWN, DOWN, DOWN WITH OLD MAN BROWN!" 'Old man brown' was the
nickname given to the current king, a much hated tyrannical old man.
The rabble, about a hundred or so in number, began to fall like paper
dolls caught in a thunderstorm. Every so often, a royalist trooper
would go down, and a smart medic in plain white would rush over and
carry him away to a waiting truck. The utter horror of the image burned
itself into Corvus' mind, and he crouched, transfixed, at the window.
As he stared, the riot police arrived, the official representatives of
the King. Five blue, wailing, armoured vans burst in to the street from
a wide side alley. The vans fanned out in to the street as they
entered, skidding and screeching to a halt between the two opposing
forces. Immediately the rear doors of the vans swung open and belched
out their cargo of padded policemen, firing bullets and tear gas in to
both sides. The Royalists backed out, firing as they left, leaping in
to the back of revving trucks. The royalist officer was first to escape
the massacre of the street, zooming off as bullets shot past his now
scratched convertible. With the royalists gone, pursued by two plucky
squad cars, the police turned on the surviving punks, the injured, and
the ones not quick enough to have run away. Mercilessly, they
massacred. The blood of the dead flowed thickly in to the gutters and
drains of the filthy street. It began to rain, slowly at first, but
gradually turning in to a torrent, sheet after sheet of crocodile
tears.
Corvus staggered back from the window and closed the shutters, bathing
the room in comfortable darkness. Much later, after having dressed and
forced down some breakfast, he logged on to the newsnet channels, as he
always tried to do at least once everyday.

Corvus connected to the Neathweb server, a covert news sub-network,
using his admin password, and read the reports posted there about the
same incident. There were no eyewitness reports but all agreed that the
official newscasts were incorrect; the protesters had not started the
violence, or taken hostages. He posted his own account of the riot,
leaving out key details that might have led to anyone tracing it back
to him. He'd check for any responses later.
Corvus was just slobbing around his module, a rarity. He fell asleep
on the couch for a while, practiced with his sword against and old
pillow suspended on a length of cord, watched some trashy television
for an hour or two. He played out a chess game between two old masters
that was notated in a book he looted from an off-world merchant. When
he became bored with this, he decided he would visit Sophie.

John was following up leads. A job he found fascinating. He was a
detective, but in New City, this required some unique skills. At the
moment, he was pretty much freelance, allowed to do whatever he wanted
with the full authority of the police force behind him. He was on the
track of an organisation responsible for the deaths of many important
people in the city, an organisation about which very little was known.
For the last few months he had been putting off submitting regular
reports on his investigation, preferring to keep quiet about what he
was doing, even to his own colleagues and friends. John had ambition,
arrogance perhaps, and a stronger sense for justice than
self-preservation. He was also an alcoholic, depressive, and
overworked.
The bar was dark, smoky and reeked of misery and despair. It was the
one he liked most. He favoured it over the clean, sleek
club-restaurants his friends liked to drink in, with fake wooden floors
and computer improvised piano solos looping in the background, where
you were served by a robot with no viewing devises who would compliment
you on your dress and accept tips. Ridicules places, he hated them, and
his friends sometimes for loving them so much. He never understood
them. No, for him, it was cheap beer, not cheap, synthetic champagne.
He watched the real people come and go, not the phoneys in plimsolls
with robotic dogs on leashes, who laughed at people with only one
watch, only one! Ridicules. Anyway, as the fashions of middle-society
became evermore eccentric, changeable and snobbish, he took notice of
them less and less. He had his new friends now, the drunks at the bar.
They didn't care if he didn't wear the latest clothes, they didn't even
notice. He took care though, that no one should find out, or they might
think him mad. "And they'd probably be right!" he thought, "But not
half as mad as you!" He was drunk again, and talking to Robert, a poor
old man who had always claimed to be the barman's son, but was almost
thirty years his senior.
"Rob, just go home! Look at you!" he said.
"Me? Look at yoo! Youur druuuunk!" He slurred back.
"What!? Pah! I'm fine! Take that back!" John was trying to adjusting
his stance on the old bar seat to that of a 'less dunk' man, and
failing.
"I will not!"
"Bah hooey to you anyway, we've both drunk too much! And I've got work
in the morning!" With this, John got up to make his way home. The only
reason he let himself get like this was because he was quick at
sobering up, and it didn't seem to affect his work, so what the hell?
It was just some fun. When he got back to his module he fell fast
asleep on the floor just inside the door.