SOLARIS DAWN

THE OUTWORLDER

Rather than kill their other two hostages, Lt. Hoss and his partner decided to save themselves the time and paperwork. They collected the evidence they needed for their employers and then handed their perps over to a local police station to handle the rest. As suddenly as they had appeared, they were gone, and Argos disappeared along with them.

Ody now sat in a tiny holding cell on a thin bench with one hand cuffed to a nearby metal pipe. Silence consumed him, gnawing at every part of his psyche, all while his ears continuously rang with a sharp pitch.

Glenn was dead. His best friend of twelve years, the person who had given him hope when he needed it most, was gone forever. If Ody had  had any moisture left in his body, it would have streamed out of his eyes and all over his cheeks. He instead sobbed without tears, coughing and sputtering every few minutes.

Frida had been crying the entire way to the police station, unable to control herself, and, after arriving, the officers took her to a special noise-dampening cell for their sanity. What would happen to her, Ody didn't know, but he knew already that he was a failure of a captain.

Images of his life flashed before him; his father's death, his uncle in the hospital, his mother departing Earth, his failure in the preliminary race, and finally, the visceral image of the light leaving Glenn's eyes.

Ody shut his eyelids tight and prayed to awaken in his bed the same way he had done after his disqualification, but each time he reopened them, he was met with only the drab grey tones of the police station. Why was it that he never had control over his own life?

Just before the race, he thought he had realized what was wrong and took over the reigns of his destiny for the first time, but it wasn't enough. Kael had cheated, and the more time Ody had to meditate on that fact, the more it angered him. Who got to decide that this was how things played out? Why was Kael able to steal his future from him?

Ody realized that Glenn's death was the same. He and his friends had committed a crime, that was undeniable, but did that authorize those men to steal from them, to take not only Glenn's present, but his future as well? What did Kael have in common with Lt. Hoss that gave them power?

Uncle Tobias' voice began to chime into Ody's internal conversation. He remembered just before Glenn's death, his uncle had said something about some 'system,' one that was stacked against him. Was it as simple as that? Blame society, its institutions, and the functions of those institutions, all to shift the onus away from himself?

His father hadn't raised him like that. He was a hard worker, someone who never took no for an answer, someone who struggled every day to achieve exactly what he wanted no matter the cost. Those textbooks that he left behind were the physical manifestation of his will, the very thing that allowed Ody to get as far as he did, so why was it that he had succeeded where Ody had failed?

Ody's constant questioning was interrupted by the clang of an officer's baton ringing out between each bar of the holding cell. "Time for your trial." He said before opening up Ody's cage and ferrying him through a maze of corridors to a small room with a single computer.

The screen came to life with the image of an older gentleman dressed in long regal-looking garb flipping through papers. Then a stern voice filled the room. "The honorable Judge Landis will now hear the case of Odell Orson v The State of Arizona, no. 89567." It called through tinny speakers.

"Mr. Orson, it seems you have been accused of the theft of property belonging, partly, to the State of Arizona, the property being a fusion chamber valued at two hundred thousand SolarCoin. Are you aware of the charges being made against you?" The judge asked, his hoarse voice grinding against Ody's ears.