Eos, Chapter 2.2: An Unwelcome Visitor

A/N: For those just joining, Dameon is a rescue worker bringing people in from the ruins of the United States to his country, Eos. He has some associates high up in Eos' government who want him to be a spy instead, but he's refused for years.

About an hour later, Dameon and Jade were still taking turns answering Kathy’s questions when June’s voice crackled over the intercom. “We are approaching Eos. Landing in six minutes.”

“Want to see?” Jade asked. “We’re coming in at a good angle to see the city. Here.” She stood up and beckoned Kathy to the small window on the left. Dameon joined them just as they broke through a cloud layer and Eos appeared.

It looked just like New York back home, but emptier., More than half the skyscrapers in the city were disused. A high concrete wall bisected the city, fencing away the wild east portion. As they got closer, Dameon was able to pick out the individual vines and trees sprawling haphazardly across the west side of the city. They gave the skyscrapers a dull earthy cast, wild and foreboding. The west side, in comparison, was pristine, the sun glinting off the buildings. The roads were freshly paved in concrete, but relatively empty — almost everyone was working.

They descended, skirting the edge of the city — the DOI was on far west side. Kathy’s eyes swept the skyscrapers, taking everything in as they passed a train station with several rows of bikes parked outside.

“There’s no cars,” Kathy said, puzzled. “Does everybody bike?”

“We don’t have gas,” Dameon said, blunt. “Our wise leader has decided it pollutes the planet too much. More realistically,” he admitted, “it’s too hard to get — not enough reserves nearby. There are some electric cars, especially out of the city, but bicycles are cheaper and easier to make, so unless you’re authorized for a car, you bike.”

“Great,” Kathy said under her breath. Dameon privately agreed.

The Department of Immigration was housed in a wide building maybe twenty stories tall, with a long, flat roof for the hoverjets to land on. When they touched down, theirs was the only search-and-rescue hoverjet currently docked. This was normal — the DOI’s main base of operations was somewhere called Shoal Lake in what used to be Arkansas or something, just because it was a better center to cover America and the more populated parts of Canada from. As far as they could tell, in most realities, countries and population centers were roughly the same as in Dameon’s home reality. In the lower dimensions… things had started to fall apart. Or in 32’s case, had long since fallen apart.

Anyway, Dameon and Jade were part of a small contingent stationed here in Eos, as flying out of here to nearby places like New York was infinitely more efficient than flying there from nowhere, Arkansas. Dameon suspected the assignment was partially because certain people wanted to keep an eye on him, but he wasn’t complaining — he’d take going home to an apartment in Eos each night over the week on, week off shifts at Shoal Lake.

“Let’s go,” said Jade, putting her hand on Kathy’s shoulder and steering her towards the door.

Inside the DOI was nothing fancy. The ubiquitous government office building, only made interesting by having the emblem of Vitas — a blood-red rising sun — emblazoned on the wall every hundred feet or so. Dameon and Jade turned Kathy over to the clerks and integration counselors. They would run her through the system to see if she had any dupes, ask her some questions about the reality she came from, and then assign her a place to live. Later, she would take an aptitude test and be given a job. All perfectly bureaucratic.

Jade and Dameon made their way to the wait room to gather their things and clock out.

“She really wasn’t bad, as newly fallen go,” Jade commented, referring to Kathy.

Dameon grunted. “I was worried she’d wear your voice out at the rate she asked questions.”

“Clearly not enough to jump in and help out,” Jade retorted.

“What are your plans between now and eight?” Dameon asked, deliberately changing the subject as he pressed the button for the elevator.

“Oh, I just got my weekly food chits. I was going to go shopping — I’m completely out of bread, fruit, you name it.”

“Oh.” He had hoped she would be free, that they could hang out until seven when she was supposed to show him — whatever it was.

Two minutes later and three floors down, Dameon pulled open the door to the leisure room and was confronted by a blast of noise. The Orange and Red teams were sprawled across three couches, laughing at a comedy that was playing on the holoscreen in front of them. “Having fun?” he shouted over the noise.

“More fun than we would in New York,” Lexi, a tall, thin white girl with hair cropped short, replied as Dameon crossed to his locker and started spinning the lock.

“Nothing like a mutant dog trying to eat you to spice up your day,” Jade shook her head, folding her arms and resting them on the back of the couch as she let the others draw her into a description of the mutant.

“Oh, Dameon,” Rex called across the room. “Mr. Davidson was looking for you. He was here just a minute ago.”

“He’ll come by again,” Dameon said, snapping his bag shut and throwing it over his shoulder as he closed his locker. “Tell him I’ll meet him in the exercise suite. He knows where.”

Gregory Davidson was the head of the Department of Immigration and, against all odds, a man Dameon respected tremendously. He was an unofficial member of the High and Mighty Samuel’s inner circle, and the only one Dameon was actually on regular speaking terms with. They often spent a workout together after his shift, discussing the DOI but also talking through the latest scientific and political news, and not the sort of stuff you got from government broadcasts. Nothing too classified, or so Gregory said, but Dameon could never quite be sure.

A few minutes later, Dameon stepped out of the elevator into the exercise suite, so named because it took up the entire twenty-fifth floor of the building. The main room opened before him, lit with clinical florescent lights, walls and floor so white he almost needed to squint. Various weights, mats, and beams were scattered through the wide, low room, arranged in groups according to the type of workout you were looking for. Most people did their exercises in the morning, so the place was nearly deserted. Dameon headed straight across the room, past the showers and lockers, to the room with the firing range.

The firing range, as usual, was deathly silent. Rafael, the range’s security and training instructor, sat at his desk with a book open. He looked up, hearing the door open, and nodded to Dameon. “You know what to do. Will Gregory be here?”

“Soon,” Dameon replied. To his right, the shooting lanes stretched out, targets lost in shadow. He flicked a switch, and the lights flickered on, row by row.

“I will get you a practice stunner,” Rafael said. “Remember to sign it out.”

Even here, in an actual shooting range, they couldn’t have real guns. Dameon suppressed his irritation and scrawled his signature in the little book that lay open on the desk, adding the time and date.

Rafael returned and handed him the stun gun. Dameon took it, automatically checking if the safety was on and being sure to keep his finger off the trigger. Good habits were the key to gun safety, even if the “gun” in question couldn’t cause permanent damage if it tried. He set the stunner down on the barrier between the firing cubicle and the lane where the targets hung, vaulting over it to go adjust the free-standing targets. A round of ten, staggered down the range, half-covering each other for greater difficultly. He’d time himself, see how long it took him to hit them all. One shot each, no collateral.

Back out of the lane, Dameon waited for Rafael to give the setup an official once-over. Rafael scrutinized the range, then nodded once and returned to his desk, leaving Dameon alone to shoot.

The stun gun was the size of a Glock pistol, but with a squat barrel. Right hand on the grip, left hand supporting the wrist, eyes in line.

“Commencing fire!” Dameon called to no one in particular. With a flick of the thumb, he disengaged the safety, raised the stunner, and fired. Ten shots. Ten short hisses, the gun growing warm in his hands. Only eight patches of red fluorescence against the creamy white targets, marking his hits.

No recoil. There was never any damn recoil. Quiet, clean, and completely harmless. A real gun was something to be respected. A toy like this made safety measures look laughable.

Dameon shot again. And again. The concentration, the focus in each sighting and shot — all of that was the same intoxicating brew. His muscles loosened, the tension in his shoulders eased, and as he called “Range is cold” and went to adjust the targets again, he found he was smiling and flushed with satisfaction. He hung two more, making an even dozen, then vaulted back over the barrier again, lost in the rhythm.

He looked up and found himself face-to-face with Gregory. Dameon stiffened, startled, but he quashed the instinct to raise the stunner in time. “You’re here!” he said instead with a smile. “How’s Martha and the kids? I don’t think I’ve seen you all week.”

“To tell you the truth, I’ve hardly seen them, either. It’s been a busy week,” Gregory said in a low, soft voice. He sounded tired. He moved to step aside. “Dameon, I — ”

Dameon froze. A very familiar figure stood behind Gregory. Dameon’s exact height, exact build — exact face. He wore an army uniform, a long row of stars decorating his shoulders. He was D30, called Dan, the head of the whole damn army. And one of Dameon’s dupes.

I don’t want to deal with this today.

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A/N Pt. 2 - I do realize the this both breaks off in a weird place and the first half is a lot of filler. Sorry.