CLEAN CUE CITY: PART ONE

written by Brian C.Williams

edited by Melinda Harold

My dad was a truck driver but before that he was a coal miner and before that he delivered pianos and before that he was in the Marines. He served in the Earth conflict called the Korean War but did not talk about it beyond saying, "Death is something that comes easy and that is the tragedy of war." He disliked anyone or anything that glamorized war. It's the reason why I can't stand Hemingway for sure. Every job my dad ever had was not by his choice but by life throwing him a curve ball. One thing he instilled in me was a sense of no matter what the circumstances that life gives you there is no reason to take that harshness of life and make yourself weak by it. No matter what job you had, you had to take it seriously and work hard even if you disliked the work. He also taught me about dealing with others. No matter if the person was a stranger or relative, you had to treat them as if you had known them all your life and they deserved the benefit of the doubt. Now my dad wasn't stupid, he also taught me to stand up for myself in every situation unless taking a little punishment would help out someone else and if fighting would hurt someone innocent. "Bravery can come in not swinging." He threw out words of wisdom that told me there was no such thing as a fair fight and if you weren't ready to hurt someone, whether it was a physical fight or not, you should walk away or in his exact words, "Be ready to kill'em or walk away."

My father was a banker, it being the profession of most of his family ever since Earth became the center of business in this sector of space. Though I was for the most part raised by people not even related to my family, I did learn a few things from my father. He taught me prejudices are very human but very bad for business. He let me know at an early age that you look into and help up the scale of the strengths in others and that was one of the key ways you will gain strength within yourself, "We are always only as strong as our weakest link so you don't throw that link away, that would be the easy way. Instead you make that link stronger because doing so will also make it loyal for the faith you showed in it." Despite using "it" a lot when referring to people, my father was actually a really good man, totally business obsessed, but he knew the strength of the human factor or person factor or people., or...?...what the fuck ever! Once aliens entered the human consciousness, the ability to communicate with other humans became a whole lot more difficult.

During my childhood, my dad drove shipments of goods all over the United States in a 18 wheel gas powered delivery machine while my mom worked as a nurse in a nursing home before becoming a full time mother. They had me late in their lives. She said that time working at the nursing home was her war experience. She saw mans’ inhumanity to man within those walls. From my mom I gained a sense of kindness but also that letting people treat you like shit all the time does nothing for your soul. She was a lonely person in so many ways. Someone who spent a life time letting others win. Though even after saying all of that, my mom was a joy to be around and really loved life when she got the chance to do new things when that opportunity came into her life.

My mother was a Child Supplier. A Child Supplier is a woman who helps the rich to continue their family line if they are going to be the last of their line. The Child Supplier signs a legal document that says this would be her only time she would have a child and would be sterilized afterwards. They get paid a life's wages for doing this but even in this age people see them as sleazy and place them in a social standing outside of the rest of society. Funny that in an age when prostitution is legal giving birth when you choose what been seen like that. This is also the only way a Child Supplier operates legally. Having a child outside of marriage or Child Supplier contract is strictly illegal. Once I was born I never saw my mother and she never saw me. I do think about her every so often but in this instance I block out thoughts about her and only think about my mom.

I was an only child in both of my families so take from that what you will learn about me as things go on.

My families were good people who would help anyone if they needed it so the word hate did not come up that often. I'm a little different from my families.

Lets start with a little egotistic thinking. The thing I hate the most about being Garth Dale is having two personalities...wait, two first names. I hate when my likes and dislikes argue but the whole having two first names thing is really a pain in the ass. It all comes down to paperwork and how transplants are listed in government documents.

The worst thing about moving to another planet is tasting black pepper twenty-four seven. Its not really black pepper you taste in the air but humans can taste a harmless invisible parasite called the Potent.

The thing I hate most about being a cop in Clean Cue City are the Doll Shells. The Music Box gangs, the still at-large Albuquerque vigilante, all are nothing compared to my hatred of the Doll Shells. A Doll Shell is a whacked out rich punk who thought life was boring being pampered, protected, and well feed, an all too typical story throughout the history of many worlds, and so these rich brats illegally paid surgeons to replace their body parts with doll-like artificial bits and pieces.

After the Robot Wars, all artificial replacement technology for non-android races was deemed illegal and an offense to the technology based races.

The replacement parts that the Dolls replace their own body parts with turns them into individuals beyond a normal human or Toriyamain line. Their physical abilities are so enhanced they are no longer classified by Earth or Toriyama law as people but categorized as dangerous weapons. The deep space technology races shoot them on sight, tear them down to little pieces, and send them back to their world of origin. Then again no one goes near the technology races for good reason. We nearly lost that war and I'm so glad I didn't end up fighting in it. Any war that takes out an entire planet on day one is pretty harsh. We will miss you Pluto, they had just made you a planet again and then boom.

Doll Shell's are really creepy looking too, sort of like acid laced Raggedy Ann dolls after years of being lovingly mistreated. Their artificial skin looks loose and seems on appearance as if it was sewed on with thread but actually the skin is bullet proof and the thread is really an almost unbreakable wire. Most Doll Shell's commit crimes because that is the next step in their extreme games bullshit. They start with crazy daredevil stunts, then go on to doing acts of vandalism. After that, they move on to high risk thievery and finally murderous actions. The technology and flesh sides are not meant to work together and the combination drives the brain of the Dolls insane. This is seen by some as more proof that technological life forms and those made of flesh are not meant to co-exist.

The Doll Shell fad has passed but from time to time we still get a Doll Shell. Hell from time to time I still see someone smoking on Earth when I get back for a visit, so some bad things never die out. Most people do not have as strong of a reaction to Doll Shells as I do but then again most people in Clean Cue are not humans. I'm just the lucky one the recruiter asked if I wanted to join the C.C.P.D. to show not everyone on Toriyama are anti-humans. The Ariyama politicians wanted a human detective in their city capital, so here I am the poster boy to try and quell hatred from one planet towards another.

Back to my Doll Shell hatred which right now is for the most part racing through my body because my heart and lungs are about to explode inside me as I chase this particular Doll through the "mean" streets of the city. Nothing pisses you off like someone making you have to run. Actually, in this, its the same way gym teachers and drill sergeants are Satan to many.

This Doll which I'm not gaining ground on was spotted by a door opener, that's doorman in human, leaving the scene of a murder, the murder of a city manager. What he managed I have no idea, I just know that my unit was called to the scene because one of our assigned specialties is Doll Shells and technology based crimes.

I was watching our bikes down the street from the scene of the crime when I spotted the Doll running away. I romote signaled that I was backing out of the location in pursuit and took off after the female Doll Shell. I haven't been able to brain signal my location because I still haven't gotten the nack of brain signaling while running yet. What can I say, I probably couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time either if I tried. It could be the case that my altered brain makes the signal device misfire.

I'm running flat out, dodging traffic, and citizens, trying to catch up with this bastardized bionic Barbie doll with Charles Manson tendencies. My brain pattern transfer from someone born in 1974 makes my culture references very dated. Some of the stuff that comes out of my mouth makes even less sense as I live on a planet with only about two hundred humans in total. Our influence on this culture outside of Keeping Up Appearance being a big hit here is almost unseen.

I gave up on trying to catch the Doll, stopped, and signaled ahead to a Zone Unit to try and bring her in. Then I signaled my unit with my location. I took a seat by a restaurant to try and catch my breath. Even though I had undergone DNA enhancements to at least keep up with Toriyamains, I'm still not the best athlete. On Earth I would have been assigned to a desk job but here...well, here I watch patrol bikes as the real police work happens. Earth police knew this was a bullshit assignment so they sent a brain pattern transplant to do it. The Toriyamain police didn't believe in wasting man power so they assigned me to a unit because, despite me being human, and putting the brain stuff aside, I'm a good cop. I know I will have to earn the respect of the rest of my unit but I am willing to do that.

The other members of my unit, Unit Offerson, arrived at my location in time to have a laugh, inform me of the Doll Shell capture, and tell me I have to walk back for my bike, "That is just the way of the rookie."

Since I'm walking back to my bike and have the time I'll explain the whole "brain pattern transfer" thing to you and we will wrap up part one of this story.

There is this Earth disease called Brain Posting which means a brain can not retain any memories once the person reaches the age of sixteen so the patient is given a brain pattern transfer from old brain tissue files This tissue is actually retrieved from the graves of those who have no family alive to object to the upheaval of their bodies, and the desecration of the remains. The destruction of the remains is required so no two people get the same pattern transfer.

All of that means I contain two sets of memories. Most transplant recipients either turn out to be a genius or a slobbering vegetable. I'm a cop. I'm a police officer on an alien planet...well, that really doesn't apply here since I'm the alien here. I'm just a police officer on another world, yea, that works better. I like it here. My partners in my unit treat me OK, about as good as any newbie would be wecomed into an unit of veterans. I'm the rookie and that's fine with me. I've already settled into my life here and hope everything will go just fine, normal, and easy for the rest of my career.

It would be a boring story for you to read on a weekly basis if that was true wouldn't it?

I guess I just need to prepare for whatever may lay ahead for me.
To fact tomorrow my first vacation starts.

(c)brian c. williams

SYSTEM*PUBLISHING

Come back next Friday for Part Two of CLEAN CUE CITY

CLEAN CUE CITY: PART ONE