The Jovians: Meet Them

Chapter 3_part 1

~~Elvis Dubia~~

It was an out-of-body experience pulling the trigger, hearing the sound the gun made as the bullet was discharged, and watching the impact as the bullet hit its target. I killed a man. I killed a man in Ganges! The moment that thought dawned on me, I dropped the gun as if it burned and I ran as fast as I could to the Basty limo waiting at the intersection of zone 6 and Howarth. I had no way of knowing if the limo would actually be there. I was told that as soon as the task was done a Basty limo would be waiting, but I didn't actually believe that they would send a car for me. It seemed more feasible to me that they would leave me stranded, standing near the murder weapon looking guilty as hell. It would have been easier for them to leave me there, I already knew my line if I was caught, I was meant to be a neurotic gay stalker upset that the infamous Will Topping refused to give me the light of day. They had made sure that I had the body to fit that description, by starving me till there was barely any fat left on me and applying so much make-up to my face that I looked like a girl. Because for some reason the stereotypical gay nut job was thin and pretty. As soon as they were satisfied with how I looked they added as if as an afterthought 'Oh, look out for a Basty limo at the street corner.' So I didn't expect to actually see a white limo at the corner of the street, but it was there. I ran towards the limo, it wasn't like I had any other choices. It wasn't until I got to the limo and was about to enter that I realised that if they had gone through the trouble to come back for me, who was probably the most wanted man in Kinte as of the second I pulled the trigger, then they had to need me for something else. That thought kept me standing outside the limo for a full minute considering if taking my chances with the Ganges law enforcement wouldn't be better than whatever else they had in store for me. But then I remembered how much the ladies loved Will and I knew that nothing could be worse than turning myself in. I steeled myself for the snare I expected to see on my curator's face, opened the door to the Basty and scooted in.

"Drive." He ordered

And the car took off with such a neck-breaking speed that I had to hang on to the seat. I watched my curator Mr. Bratlei as he openly observed me. After what felt like an eternity of blank stares, he reached into his pocket and threw his handkerchief at me.

"Clean yourself up." He ordered "You look disgusting."

I nursed the thought of disobeying him and replying that he had been the one to authorise the make-up, but then I thought about the inexorable consequences that would follow and I scrambled to obey him. He snickered. I had been broken, and he knew it as much as I did. Two months ago I would have punched him in his fat protruding belly for speaking to me that way, damn the consequences. Two months ago I would never had allowed anyone to make me up; I was too proud in my masculinity. Two months ago I could never have taken another person's life. As hard as I tried to stop it, I couldn't stop myself from flashing through my life going back to the day when it all changed, my last day of freedom.

I had been the cockiest thief to ever roam the streets of Luinsbury. My mentor turned best friend always told me that I was born to steal, and that did nothing to tame my gigantic ego. On my last day of roaming the streets of Luinsbury as the well-known, and well-respected python, I grew cocky. My best friend Thom held the record for most money stolen in a single outing. He had stolen five thousand tenks one sunny afternoon from a pompous business man stupid enough to walk around the streets of ghetto Luinsbury, with a briefcase full of money. Before that event I had undoubtedly been the best thief in Luinsbury, swift, cunning and fatal as the python I was named for. But Thom became the one that the younger boys emulated, and that pissed me off. So I decided that when the opportunity arose I would steal enough money to make Thom's find seem miniscule, I didn't care if I had to rob a bank. My opportunity didn't come till much later. I had waited for months to resume my position as Luinsbury's chief of larceny, so it was with great joy that I received the news that a well-known Zuidalian was roaming my streets. Zuidal is the capital of Kinte, the very rich capital of Kinte. Zuidal was almost like a different country compared to the rest of Kinte, and the politicians and aristocrats were quick to point that out; they'd introduce themselves as Zuidalian before they called themselves Kintian. It was too bad for the one floating around Luins that everyone knew them pompous types had to hire people to wipe their ass. Since the rumour mill had it that this brave, foolish Zuidalian was here all by his lonesome, I expected taking his money to be as easy as taking candy from a baby. I should preface my recounting of my theft, by pointing out two things. The first is that the Luins rumour mill is very reliable. The gossips in Luins were the best in the world, they were very detail oriented and minimal in their replacement of fact with fiction. If the Luins gossip mill said that there was blue smoke coming out of a chimney, ninety-nine percent of the time there would be blue smoke coming out of that chimney. The second point is that I was usually more careful. I had grown in fame and notoriety by being very careful about picking my victims, and making sure that I would not get caught. After my first and only experience with being caught, I didn't want it to ever happen again. This case was different though, my ego was bruised, and I really did believe that it would be an easy steal.