Mana Pool Snippets - The Days After

Four

"Jesus," Scott said.

"Now here's where you'll hate Denverbay as I." Jaruka propped his collared leg on an adjacent bench. "The A.I. is probably somewhere close, but that is connected to this band." The black band between his knees had distinctive grey stripes. "The soulless A.I. is programmed to fire the spires if anything happens to me. It is listening, right now. Your 'internet.' My heartbeat. Those spires are coming, and there's nothing to stop them. Unless you swoon Denverbay off his spikes, that won't happen."

"Wait, more. You said more?" Scott asked.

Jaruka slowly nodded. "Dozens. Standard against Red Flagged protected planets. They will orbit Terra Firma in the coming days. By then you'll see them by telescope and dotting the night sky picking up your sun's light."

Katie looked floored and she sat down on a crate. Arana flapped and perched next to her. "Jesus. That's insane."

"You think that's insane? The conditions are worse."

"How so?" Scott asked.

Jaruka finished the bottle and belched. He set the bottle down but it toppled and rolled off onto the floor. "First, I think, you two and your family are exempt. Everybody else is watching their backs against me. What I do recall..." He hiccuped. "...Any government or military member—like dumbass Mathews—even touch me without a threat, and that includes a single finger, a spire or more trigger and target an area the person works for or from."

Jaruka heard someone scream but he was unsure who it belonged to. Keeji shivered a little.

"Arrests, beatings, even a skin scratch, the spire fires, or spires. Normal citizens are exempt, I hope. Oh and the best part," Jaruka said in a sarcastic tone, "if I die, a quarter of the planet is composted from my location."

The terrans did not take that bit well. "Fucking hell," Scott said. "Why?"

"A message to never mess with the Galactic Council and somehow send your species a few hundred years behind in evolution. I don't know, it's my guess."

"So," Arana said. "If you die here, the United States is eradicated?"

"Kuido," Jaruka said.

"That's bingo, right?"

"Kuido." Jaruka sniffed. "No matter how you preach your gods, or parade nuclear weapons, the answer will always lead to death."

"But what if a foreign power tries to kill you?" Scott asked.

Jaruka laughed. "I told you. The land is composted where I die."

"I meant before."

"Oh, then yeah. I'll check with the A.I., when I try talking to it."

"Shit. So what about everybody else that's not a government member."

"Oh, that," Jaruka said leaning back. "Any idiot human, or terran, can beat me up unless my life is threatened or I die."

"Okay," Katie said. "So what will you do to stop it from happening?"

Jaruka stood up. "For one, the dropship's shield. Two, this?" He lifted his loner shirt above his pecks.

"What the heck is that?" Keeji asked.

Over Jaruka sternum was a clear, vertical stretched hexagon crystal, trapped in a chrome frame and seemingly attached to the bone. It brightened every few seconds.

"I saw that when we put you into the bathtub," Katie said. "What is it?"

"A PSD."

"English?"