The Chromia Club

YEAR 2077

Our new world is painted in a sheet of clean silver and dirty brick. Which of these you see is dependent on your social status, and fortunately for the members of the Chromia Club, its all shine.

But private detective Rosio Navarette wasn't interested in chic metallurgy. This was where the 1% lived, filled with charming young investors and old tycoons. The club was used for these people to their own dignified professions and have a little uptown fun while doing it. Today though, color had entered this monotone world; but it was not gray. It was red.

From the day the top ruled the world no pig dared enter the halls of the mighty, but Rosio did not forget the law and it's entitlements. He was a pig out for meat.

The door opened. The room was white. White walls, white dresses, white suits, white glares. Rosio slowly made his way up the stairs to the center of the room. Not only that, but the center of attention. They all stared at Rosio. He was different. He wore black.

One man looked down at him from a balcony above. The shepherd. He wore a white vest, that matched his white beard.

“Rosio Navarette, PI. I'm here to talk to the Locust.”

The shepherd looked at him with stone cold eyes, but honored his request regardless. With the sweep of his hand he sent a young damsel off the stage and into the back.

Rosio looked around him. They all looked, but their looks were all different. Angry looks. Pitying looks. Bored looks. Eventually new figures entered the stage, but they were not what he expected.

The floor cleared. These new men too wore white – but they did not don white suits. They donned white armor.

Rosio knew what he needed to do. He drew his sabre, and they drew theirs. 2 white, 1 black. They went so fast it was a show on itself, and besides the sound of steel on shining steel the room stayed silent.

But then there was another sound, the sound of a glass crack.

One of the guards fell to the ground, while the other went for a strike. Parried, and knocked out. What a pitiful performance.

The room went quiet again, with only Rosio standing. As ears adjusted, you could here panting. But now, there was a tap of a cane. And another. Soon, the room fell into an organized set of taps, with everyone joining in the orchestra. Except Rosio.

A third man came in, different from the others. All the others, for though he did have a white handkerchief he wore a new suit. A red suit. It was the Locust.

“I am Rosio Navarette. You killed my daughter.”

The tapping stopped.

The Locust looked upon his prey in the calm. Rosio was well enough to realize that he was not the one to come easily, but unfortunately for him, he brought a sword to a gunfight.

A loud shot. A crippling pain. Those were the last moments of Rosio Navarette's life, as he tilted back and fell onto the ground of the Chromia Club.

The tapping continued. The world was black and white again.


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A Drop of Jupiter

The lights of the Ellis stationwagon flickered as they went through the night.

Burris Ellis had always made a decent living doing what all his relative's before him did – growing the plants and breeding the animals on the Ellis family farm. Unlike the other farmers in his county he was not much one of superstition; he didn't believe in aliens and didn't read the bible, both of which are considered grave sins in the community. Of course, Burris didn't believe in the act of sin either.

So when Burris saw the bright blue flame streak across the sky, he thought it was what any city-folk would think it would be – a comet. It wasn't until after the shaking and the boom that Burris decided to investigate.

In the clearing the comet created, there was nothing but ash – nothing but ash and a small metal sphere in the center of it all. The Ellis Patriarch examined the sphere closely – despite its strong impact on Earth, the sphere was perfectly rounded. A quick hand raised above the sphere revealed that it was not hot at all, but rather the opposite – an icy cold irradiated the surface of the iron.

If Burris didn't believe in the supernatural before, he sure did now.

Suddenly, the sphere began to change – to form and contort all over. Blue lights turned on from inside the capsule, as it opened up to reveal a beautiful blonde woman, completely naked.

Burris stumbled back, managing to get caught under a tree root and fall. To the noise that he made upon impact the woman turned around to look him straight in the eyes. Her eyes glowed blue just as the sphere did.

“W-w-wh-who are you?” Burris managed to stuttered out.

“Amanda.” Before Burris was even able to continue Amanda fired with a question of her own: “Do you know how to get to Steubenville from here?”

“Uh, yeah. It's a few miles up the road,” He pointed in the direction, “I can show you-”

Before he could even finish, the woman was already walking to his car. With a jolt of electricity from her hand she opened the door, and with another jolt she turned on the car.

Burris shouted at her and attempted to chase, but by the time he got himself out of the root she was no where in site.

The next day he told everyone, but the police, seeing he fit the farmer stereotype, decided not to believe him then. The fellow farmers, however, knew he was not suspicious – knew that he wouldn't be saying these things unless he saw it, and it was unmistakable that he saw it.

Either way, a new creature descended from the heavens that day. And her name was Amanda.


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Routine

Lieutenant Chris Sanders of Dalton, California had gotten used to his life at his new permanent home in Moonbase Alpha. After every expeditionary unit left, he would clean after them, shoot all of their trash and other bodily fluids out into space, and reset the computers for the next operation. After he does that, he checks in with his supervisor (the head of the NASA moon operation), checks the oxygen levels, gets in his suit and checks the outside area for any damage, checks inside for any internal damage, and checks the different long term experiments on the base. From a personal standpoint, every morning he gets up, makes some coffee and other breakfast essentials via the food given to him via shipments (Moonbase Alpha is in a simulated gravity environment, so some foods that would otherwise not be possible to eat in zero gravity environments now are), puts his stuff away, brushes his teeth, takes a shower, checks his laptop for the latest earth news, and exercises, before starting with his daily work schedule.

That being said, it's pretty easy to say Sanders routine is about the same as any of us on Earth.

The only difference being that Sander broke into a cold sweat when he heard a knock on the entry door.


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