Globe Tracers 6: Chaos Storm

Chapter 11: Paragon

Jessica:

As I said, to tell this tale, we must travel far from this place, to a planet called Triad, to a city called Paragon.

This is a story from the other side of my coin- so to speak- my split personality. I'll still use "I" as a reference because well- she is me and I am her in the end. Paragon was an advanced and populated city, which meant endless entertainment to most, but to me, it just meant high prices for even the basics.

When you're a bounty hunter, the nastiest criminals fetch the highest prices. The most brutal, or well connected- or maybe just the best at evading justice. I had to know my skill level of course. I mostly stuck to the semi-brutal types, as I wasn't smart enough to track down the super-connected or geniuses of their craft, and the really brutal criminals would chew up a kid like me and spit out the bones, even with my special powers.

On earth, it was the year of our Lord, 1943, March 7th, but for me, it was just my seventh day straight of canned food rations. None of the bounty-hunting teams had wanted a temp, so I had to find a mark that was just my size- and I found him in Nabu.

He was a dark-skinned gentleman with curly hair that draped down to just above his shoulders. He stood only four feet above the ground even though he was an adult, but to me, he was still a giant, as I was still only in my sixth age. He had two distinctly different colored eyes- one red, one blue.

Nabu was wanted for the murder of his own wife and son. I had visited the location of the crime- there were pieces of his family everywhere. There was no pity in my heart, looking at the blood spread over the toys of his own child, nor regret when looking at the torn dresses of his once beautiful wife. There was only a sickness in my stomach when I retreated from the scene. Not like it was a meal I wanted to especially keep down, but all the same...

I had asked about him in the places around his block. Turned out he had a job at a local bar. I wasn't permitted to drink alcohol at my age, but I could hang around all the same- if I wanted to be bored and pay ridiculous prices for juice. I sat on a bar stool before the counter, sipping hot apple juice, called cider to make kiddies like me feel more grown up. It occupied my time anyway. The cup hummed quietly every few seconds, lights showing just above its base, as it heated every few seconds to keep my drink nice and hot. Free refills too, all I had to do was put the cup on a small yellow saucer on the counter top and the drink would be refilled from a machine underneath.

The floor of the bar was old wood, with wooden beams holding up an old wood roof. There was even an occasional cobweb here or there- all a show of course. If you looked close enough, the "wood" showed a strange film here and there where an employee had scratched too hard when cleaning, removing the fake finish from the plastic.

The bar only had ten or fifteen people in it, but none of them were my mark. The music playing over the intercom was classical and ready to put me to sleep as I blew on my drink for the fifteenth time in a row to cool it off, just so I could watch the lights spring to life as the cup detected it was a half degree under-temp. I kept my raincoat's hood up, my baggy rain pants making a relaxed fit that both helped mask my skinny figure and served the purpose of being super comfy.

I kept my eyes traveling around the bar, again and again. A short man walked with a small cane under one hand, used more for style than practicality. The man struggled to get on top of a bar stool next to me almost as hard as I had when I came in. He grunted a few times and when he was finally up, he sighed in satisfaction, his voice high and nasally, like a man who had sucked on helium too long. The sound made me grin despite myself.

"Hey- laugh it up little one," he said as he hit a button on the chair to make its base extend a little to put him at a convenient height for his short arms. "Been starved for an innocent smile like yours, girl." He reached over and petted my hood like he was intending to mess up my hair, but it got in the way. "What are you doing out here? Where are your folks?"