Life 10 - Chapter One -

This is the start to my new novel Life 10, that's to the power of 10. Please edit and tell me what you think! :)

-1-

“The bastard deserved to die.” Max grumbled as he swilled the last remnants of Tropic Synth around the base of his whiskey glass. A drink that could blind some and paralyse most. Emerald tendrils hide under the surface, waiting for you to take that earthly sip. And then it grabs you, pulls you down into the unmoving, unwanting tyrant of hallucination and delirium. He gulped it down without a second thought and rested his head back on the arm of the sofa. It was hard and uncomfortable but to move anywhere else would be a challenge. He dropped the whiskey glass onto the table, also made from cut-glass, actually a plastic polymer retro-manufactured to look and feel like glass. But that didn’t matter.

He rubbed his eyes and then held them shut. The window to his apartment was agape. A wall sized hole in his abode. The thin blue curtains rippled in the wind as the sounds of the city irked their heads in. Sirens and shouting and sex and singing and selling and screaming. The city sleeps, but in its slumber it sleep talks. And of nothing nice, the grit and the pus of real life emerges, it congeals onto the streets and sells its wares. Under the lights of forever running advertisements and neon interactions. But Max didn’t have to worry about that, the High Seven had just hit him and he was falling away from this bumbling city. It was called the High Seven because it takes seven seconds for the Tropic Synth to hit its mark, the target in between your eyes. First a wave of warmth washes over your toes and ripples through your body, it finishes at your fingertips and you get this weird taste of coconut on the tip of your tongue. Now this reaction is planned, at this moment you forget what comes next, preventing you from throwing up or taking a Stomach Stamp and removing it. You’ll blissfully lay back and take it all with a smile on your face.

It seeps into the back of your mind, at first it’s a haze of mushed up faces and feelings. But the strongest ones break through, they slip through the cracks and dance in the light of night. Max wouldn’t say that he did this too much, he keeps his personal business to himself. It doesn’t matter what his partner thinks or what the department thinks. He was a damn good detective and that was that. Or at least he was. Back when detectives were needed. Back when murder was so much simpler. This morning was a perfect example. Grayback Slimly, an oily individual with as much teeth as brains cells. He raped and killed a woman. Held her down and squeezed so hard that her eyes almost popped out of her head. Left naked and alone in one of the under alleyways. A stark green hue covered her from the Neon Soda advertisement that was blinking as people walked passed her.

The girls name was Clara, she was twenty and had a fierce temper. Max remembers when he and his partner would survey the crime scene. Find evidence and take down the perp. The worst part being informing the family. Now this happened rarely now. Clara exploded with golden light, her body convulsed and wriggled in the lapping of soft rain. The muscles in her neck realigned along with her broken bones, even the scar on her ankle melted away. Breath invaded her lungs and she shot up to her feet. Her neck burned and she rubbed it as she hid her naked body behind a dumpster. A scar appeared above her collar bone, alongside one that was very similar. This was the second time she’d died.

Live Genetics. In the wake of one of the worst outbreaks known in human history, they were born. Death was rampant in the streets of the cities, sickness afflicted almost seventy percent of the population. It was like nothing they had ever seen or ever prepared for. The virus was beautiful in its composition of death. It evolved and adapted. It presented itself as any and all illnesses, you could get lucky and only have a cold, or you could have cancerous tumours eating away at your brain. But Live Genetics saved the world. Their creation, Life10. A pill that could grant you ten lives. After you died it activated within your system, completely destroying all foreign objects, pathogens, viruses and it could even fix your bum knee. The only remnant is a little scar that appeared on your neck, the dissipation of energy burning its way out. It only took a couple of weeks before the virus was utterly eliminated.

From the ashes of almost certain destruction, humans stepped out into the realm of gods. It changed everything as could be expected. Laws changed, cities changed, people changed. What was murder, if the man you just shot stands back up? It costs you one life. A life for a life. A simple system, an unfair system certainly but it was one people understood. Large prison islands were constructed to hold such quantities of miscreant. They were more like their own countries. One life equated to eighty years. With Life10 you could live approximately one-hundred and fifty years. Old age still crept up on you at the end. But your body is in such good condition by your late nineties that you get your third wind. The life sentence was ill named, it was more of an inconvenience than a prison stretch.

They never explained why the pill couldn’t cure old age.

“No one wants to live forever. We merely give you the opportunity to make mistakes, and when you do make them they’re not your last.” Every form of this sentiment was repeated in the press during the distribution phase.

Max coughed and awoke from the dream-world. He winced and pressed his hand against his head, the familiar anvil falling on his head feeling was back. His eyes phased out and in, it took a moment for them to adjust to the burning lights that invaded his apartment. A loud bang rocked his head, he scrunched his face as he sat up on the sofa. Max looked wantonly at the empty bottle, his mind trying to convince him that there was a drop left but he knew it was lying. The bang rocked him again, this time prompting Max to reach under his pillow and pull out his service pistol. It was pulse barrelled and shot ionised bolts of energy. Standard in the force. They were considered non-lethal, this was somewhat contradictory due to the fact that they could very much kill a person. Most of the time however it dropped you target in a fit of pain and by that time you had already cuffed them. It takes a very acute shooter to kill in one shot.

Max checked the charge chamber and held it up to his ear. The loud bang washed over the sofa and out of the window. It was the front door. He didn’t lower his weapon, instead he pulled together his dressing gown and pressed himself up against the wall.

“Max, I know you’re in there, let me in.” William Buchanan said, his head pressed up against the door. This wasn’t the first time he had to go looking for his partner. Max gulped down a small amount of sick that was creeping up his throat, Tropic Synth gave you terrible heart burn. His knees wobbled and he steadied himself on the side cabinet besides the door. A glass bottle fell and smashed on the ground. 

“I can hear you in there, come on man, let’s not play this game again.” Again Max refused to reply. It was a combination of the terrible migraine that was piercing his thoughts and his reluctance to join a tedious lecture from Bill. Meaning well only gets you so far. Bill sighed and scrapped his hand along the door frame. 

“Slimly got let free, just thought I’d let you know.” Bill turned back and lumbered down the hallway, half hoping that Max would open the door. He looked back one last time and slinked away. Max slid down the wall and sat on the floor. He held his pulse pistol in his hand and in a fit of rage threw it into the bedroom. The pistol sliding under the bed. One life for one life. That’s the law.