The object drifted silently on its course through the starry, silent vacuum of the cosmos. It was a metallic hulk of gray panels and oversized thrusters out its south end.

It was unceremoniously nicknamed a moo because it was shaped like a huge milk carton, the windows of the bridge forming the “tabs.” The ship was nothing fancy and it didn't need to be. It was a vessel for moving freight or prisoners. I was of the latter. I sat in my seat, a guard in beige camo on either side. They looked like turkey buzzards and I was roadkill. None of us wore space suits, for they were not needed in the pressurized hull of the moo.

I knew where I was headed. It was a planetoid on the far end of the Milky Way. It had been terraformed many years ago. I'm sure it was an interesting process and I'm sure it involved a ton of scientific jargon, but I'm not Isaac Asimov or the other guy that wrote about threesomes on the moon; I therefore will not attempt to give an exposition of the process.

It had been made into human worthy habitation and a penal colony. Its name was Grifter's End & had become the rug beneath which society swept its dirt.

The colony on the planetoid, just a tad bigger than Earth's moon,was the solution to that glaring issue political devotees on all sides could agree needed fixing: prison overcrowding. This was where low level offenders were dumped,your prostitutes, druggies, and petty thieves. Your big bads like kiddy touchers, serial killers and rapists stayed on Earth. Well in time the prostitutes did what they did best and the men did what they did best and soon everyone was breeding like rabbits and an entirely self-sufficient society had been carved out.

The “moo” touched down, shaking us all up and for that brief instant I had something in common with Elvis Presley. I straightened my suit and tie as the hull depressurized with a pwoooshhh sound. The ramp lowered with an annoying mechanical groan and I was escorted off the hunk of junk and onto the platform and subsequently to the care of two more guards wearing the same uniform as those on the ship except with the addition of gas masks and red berets. The gas masks were for pure intimidation factor. The air on this rock pile was breathable.

“Do you know what brings you here?” One asked in a brusque tone.

“Of course I do.”

“Let's move it along then.”

My former escorts were handed a clip board with a bunch of papers they hastily signed off on as though I were a parcel they had just uncaringly dropped off. Once the ship had lifted off and pierced the night sky I was handed a tablet with a list of instructions staring at me from the glowing screen.

The gates to the colony proper flung open and I walked inside, swallowed by the neon boa that this place was.

Under the watchful eyes of the guards and their bullpup rifles I followed each instruction carefully. I was documented, checked in and given my assigned job, and the address to my apartment where I'd live on this penal colony space rock.

Given the low level nature of my criminal offenses I got a cushy but tedious job as quality control in the factory that towered like a colossus over the low rise cityscape. This colony was designed for total self-sufficiency. Food, metal hardware, software, light bulbs all of it was manufactured right here. The most reformed of this place's denizens even owned farms away from the congestion of this city. Surplus was exported off world back to Earth. Every few months or so a ship would arrive from the Mother Planet bearing care packages of sorts. These contained the few things we wouldn't have access to here. It gives us toilet paper to wipe our butts and the Earthlings some superficial peace of mind about shooting us into space. A win win situation don't you see?

There was well constructed social order about the colony too. You had your low level menial workers like me, the people in the factories and the farmers and stuff. Then you had the shop owners and bartenders, the staff like the stuffy suit who checked me in. Then above all of us were the guards; their iron grip had loosened over the years as the criminals reformed with the construction of the colony but they remained ever vigilant….up to a point.

They had a don't bother the bee approach to their policing. If you walked down the wrong alley and someone did shank you which was rare there'd be an investigation and the perp would be punished in some manner if caught the key word is IF.

The truth is this: what's the point of imprisoning a crook when he's already in prison? Basically everything short of open prostitution or mass riots got a blind eye turned toward it. If I had tobput it a simpler way I'd say the authorities at this point in the colony's history were mainly for decoration and making sure that the reformed stayed that way. If let's say some factory workers were gambling on their breaks not a problem it was free time. If on the other hand a bunch of the thieves that got sent here continued the practice they'd be dealt with.

My apartment was spartan and painted a very sterile white. That was fine. I'm a simple man. The lighting cast an ambient blue pall over the interior. I wasn't sure if this served a practical purpose like calming workers after a shift or if it was for pure aesthetics. I found the fridge fully stocked with locally sourced foodstuffs of all sorts. The living room had a couch with a light strip built into its bottom portion. There was a radio built into the wall for music from a selection of thumb drives housed in a little cubby next to the radio.

There was no T.V.. A cineplex played selected films on the weekends and that took care of visual entertainment; though as I learned later there were other forms of entertainment on this planetoid that people indulged in even they weren't supposed to.

The bedroom had a full wardrobe waiting for me in the closet. For a convicted criminal I had it pretty good. A box on a night stand contained other things for me including a list of eating places and something that looked like squished pennies,musk coins the physical equivalent to the USA's universal cryptocurrency. There was another item that made both my eyebrows raise in bemusement.

There was a small pistol in the box. The citizens had no rights to firearms (though I expected a black market existed). So what was this doing here?. Oh well, a problem for another day.

I picked out a pajama set from my closet and showered. I placed the mysterious gun under my pillow. The bedroom had no windows. And was bathed in the soothing illumination of the holographic clock projected onto the wall. The colony ran on civilian Earthtime. 7:00 PM.

I would be working day shifts for the rest of my life here so I shut my eyes and didn't open them until I was brought out of slumber by the sound of demonic hornets buzzing into my room. The alarm was automatically set for Six in the morning.

For three days I worked my seven hour shift inspecting computer parts as the factory spit them out. By the third night my brain had become an auditorium as I slumbered. Clipboards and microchips performed cabaret and I had front row seats.

The star that this space rock floated around was already setting by the end of my shift at Four-Thirty in the afternoon. ISo when I stepped out into the crowded streets it was already twilight. I pulled the collar of my coat, a long tailed coat with reflective material woven throughout it, close to my face.

I looked at one of the guards, “Excuse me. I've got a question.”

Through the gas mask he replied abruptly, “What do you want?”

“What do people here do for fun on Friday night?”

“Same crap they do back on Earth, go to the bar, go home, sleep, find a good screw. Take your pick. Get outta here, conman!”

So I faded into the sea of people. One thing I noticed was a lack of vehicles. There were cyber cars that served as taxis, and the skiff like vehicles the farmers used to bring in their goods and that was about it.

Across Grifter's End boomed the voice of the High Warden, the planet's version of a governor, “Good Afternoon citizens of our fine colony. You've all worked hard this week as always. To the recent transfers I say this: continue down the honest and righteous path and you'll be back Earthside before you know it.”

That was a joke. It wasn't that he wasn't sincere but rather that most people who got shipped here chose to stay; that's how this place was built to start with. I knew of people with two to five year sentences that had served them and never requested to return home. Now here I was myself having become an intergalactic jail bird.

The question I guess arises: was this really a jail anymore? I mean I was practically in the lap of luxury. This brought to mind all the criticism I'd ever heard about the justice system and how us convicts sometimes had it better than the average working man.

Another point could be made that we were now living the lives we should have been as honest American citizens. Whatever helped the folks back on Earth sleep better.

I didn't go back to my digs right away. I wandered aimlessly, a buffalo in a neon pasture and in this wandering I walked into this sector's tavern. The place was bright enough to agitate a thousand hangovers. Whoever was in charge here needed to learn about ambiance.

I sat at the bar and ordered a cider. The bartender was a stocky man of some girth. He had a well trimmed mustache and close cut, coal black hair. He had dark blue eyes that told me he was haunted by ghosts he'd never fully exorcize, those of his past. “Here you go.” he said with a well practiced smile as he slid me my pint glass.

It wasn't the best I'd tasted but it was far the worst. No doubt it had been imported from the Mother Planet at the maximum allocated expense for such things. “What's your story?" I asked him.

The smile faded as he recounted the story to me. “Vehicular manslaughter. I was driving under the influence and pancaked an entire family who had just left a restaurant.

“Justice was meted out swiftly and I was sentenced to life. Thus they shipped me up here and I was put to work here.”

“Around alcohol?”

“Let the punishment fit the crime. I'm reminded of my misdeeds with each drink I pour out to every downtrodden prisoner, every citizen, and every besotted Space Force lackey that comes through that door.”

“Those are mighty fancy words for a whiskey slinger.”

“I was an English teacher once…. before that night.”

We both didn't say much after that. I felt bad, having dredged up corpses from the lake of his memory. A hand gripped my shoulder and I heard someone say, “You're in my chair. That's not very skibidi of you.”

I unfortunately recognized that word and it caused disgust and vitriol to course through my entire being. It was slang used by that generation of youth who'd been raised by their electronic gadgets instead of their parents who had wanted all the sex and none of the responsibility of parenting.

I did the math and estimated this person to be in their late twenties as I had been when I had to listen to kids spew this trash lingo from their mouths. My generation had a term for it: brain rot.

I turned to face this young man(or whatever he fancied himself to be). “Look, kid I can tell you were raised without respect and manners but you are a prisoner here like us. You're not entitled to anything here. Find another chair.”

He spun me around and cussed me out. At this point I couldn't help myself. “Obviously you don't understand what I said because you were reading on a third grade level in Middle School. Find another chair.”

He pulled a knife on me and I dodged it and grabbed his wrist and twisted it. There came the sounds of dry twigs in summer and he screamed. “Gahhh! What the sigma?”

He glared at me. I glared back. “Allow me to speak to you in the only language you generation Alpha zombies could ever comprehend. You came in here thinking that you had some kind of ‘Ohio, W rizz’ and that made you an alpha.

“ That ‘rizz’ of yours was short for charisma. I've seen monkeys throwing poop in zoos that had more charisma than you had at thirteen and will ever have now.”

He retorted with the default comeback of his brainless generation. “Your mom!”

I balled my hand into a fist and my knuckles administered the sort of strict discipline this punk had never received from his parents or the public school system. I could feel his jaw when it broke. He hit the floor tiles writhing in pain. The bouncer, a man who looked like Stone Cold, dragged him by his shirt collar and tossed his butt out into the street from whence he had come. The bartender confiscated the knife and all was peaceful again.

I finished my drink with less enthusiasm. This incident reminded me why I hated going out for anything except groceries and errands. At least here my groceries were provided by the taxpayers of Earth & I had no errands.

I left that over-lit establishment as quickly as I'd entered. My every sense was alert just in case that “Gen Alpha” punk wanted a rematch. I took my place within the ocean of faces, scarred faces, faces missing an eye, faces that were twenty turned forty-five by drugs, the faces of men and women and some children etched by years of hard living and stupid choices; above them all on top of balconies or leaned against walls were the anonymous faces of the guardsmen.

I struggled to escape from the congested mass of jail bird colonists and turned into an alley. At last I could hear myself think, the only noises coming from the alley were my footfalls and the skittering of some native creature unseen in the shadows. Emerging onto another street I noticed the building on my left (one of the two that formed the alley) was very strange. It has been constructed of brick then painted a rather stygian black. A golden dome adorned the roof. The edifice also contained stained glass windows and steps led up to beautifully gilded doors above which hung a sign that read: Friends of the Emancipator of Souls.

I took note of the very oddball building & was continuing my journey when an old man sitting on the steps called to me. I acknowledged him and took in his every feature, wrinkles, a long beard down past his chest, black coat with matching hat and pants, and very mad eyes drained of sanity. “What can I do for you?” I asked.

“He's coming for us, you know? It'll be suddenly in the night, maybe even this night! He'll swoop down in a blazing chariot with an army of archangels.

“There‘sa going to be much fear and trembling as they raze this place with holy power but those of us who know him shall be liberated!”

The crazed sermon was given with much wild gesturing and those eyes became even more insane with each syllable.

“Whose coming?” I asked.

He looked frustrated and with a judgemental finger worthy of a boisterous televangelist he pointed and said “Him you, heathen ninny. The Great Emancipator!”

I followed the finger to a battered poster on the brick wall. I recognized the image instantly. It was a man with a slightly deformed face whose high cheekbones were framed by a jet black beard. The eyes were deep set and piercing but also friendly. If I had any smidgen of doubt it was annulled by the stovepipe top hat. The man on the poster was Abraham Lincoln. He stood on top of another figure, a fallen John Wilks Booth complete with a pointed tail and devil horns.

This was very surreal and strange. Had I traded Grifter's End for the Twilight Zone? I continued walking with the lunatic behind me crying out for me to repent. I made it back to my State funded domicile. Only once was I stopped by a patrolling guardsmen and asked about my business. I told the truth and he directed me back to the apartments.

It seemed there was far more to Grifter's End than met the eye. Something about that “church” put me on edge and I was actually grateful to be behind these walls. I stared out the singular window in the living space. If this place was a colony now why keep sending prisoners like me here? Of course self-sufficiency and cheap labor were the obvious answers along with the best answer of all: Politics. This space rock needed them and Gauntanamo didn't want them.

At some point I grew tired of staring out that lone window brooding about Grifter's End and I decided to listen to some music. I selected a USB drive at random and plugged it into the designated slot on the radio. Unfortunately my ears were assaulted by cosmo-jazz.

This was a genre that had sprung up on Earth about 15 years ago. It combined Jazz with Electronica. I like both those genres by themselves but I detested the marriage of the two. I had friends back in the day who hated dubstep which is all but extinct by now; this assault on my ears made me understand that disdain better. Music through a blender is what they'd called it and I now felt the same way about cosmo-jazz!

I yanked the drive from the radio and cast it off like so much refuse. With a groan I decided to call it a night. As I tossed and turned the mystery of the gun in the supply box was an angry pekingese nipping at the ankles of my mind and barking its phantasmal lungs out!

Who had put the weapon there and why? I fell asleep staring at it on my side table.

Saturday night on Grifter's End. The Ten O'clock curfew lifts with the caveat of increased patrols still the patrols do not really give a baboon's backside about much. So far except for that punk at the bar I hadn't really seen anybody stupid enough to try anything.

Still the gas masked faces did their best impression of watching us like hawks.

I was sitting inside the cineplex, my body sank down into one of the most uncomfortable chairs I'd ever sat in. My eyes were fixed on the silver screen as a travesty of a screenplay unfolded before me; now I'm no arm chair, keyboard punching, wannabe film critic. If anything I have a soft spot for crappy low budget movies, the kind with CGI dinosaurs picking off bikini wearing dingbats. We're talking the bottom of the straight to video barrel.

I disliked this movie as a matter of principle. It was called Lord of the Jungle Planet. It was basically a Science Fiction spin on Tarzan. Why do that when the character's author had a whole body of work set on other planets? Then I remembered one of those tales had been adapted for the screen back in 2012. The book was better….

Anyhow I'll step off that soapbox before it collapses beneath my weight. All that I've related thus far was how I spent my first days in the colony of Grifter's End.

Monday rolled around with its usual amount of force. I go through my checklist: dress, eat breakfast, get out the door in time to meet the cyber-car that would take me to work. Though it had started small, Grifter's End had grown enough in size that not everything was within walking distance and these cyber-cars were a taxi service of sorts. Some like the one I was riding in now were pre-arranged to pick up workers.

The only other form of vehicular transportation was the hovering skiffs-for lack of a better term-that the planetoid's farmers used to haul in their goods. There was no air travel; it was as unnecessary as it was unfeasible. Every inch of landing pad was required for the shuttles from Earth.

I didn't speak to my driver and he didn't speak to me. That was fine. I noticed a black version of my conveyance had been sticking to us like glue since we left. The windows were too tinted to discern the occupants but I didn't need to. I already knew from my first week here it was guardsmen making sure the taxi got from point A to point B without any funny business.

I spent the day inspecting every inch of an army of boxes filled with surplus heading to Earth soon. No computer chip was left unexamined, no light bulb left unturned. I was still amazed that so many different things could be produced in one factory but danged if they weren't. The factory had different wings and each buzzed with worker bees churning out that wing's particular product.

It should go without saying that not everything was produced in this one factory but the sheer amount of stuff this factory did turn out was enough to make your head spin!

My head did spin quite a bit today. It was like a dreidel on Hanukkah right up to my lunch break. Even here I followed the carefully laid out order of things: Wait in line, don't think too hard about what the items on your tray are made of, find an empty seat in the commissary and chow down.

A burly man with a voice pitch that didn't match his build made small talk with me between bites of a sandwich he'd brought from home, wherever home was for him. He wore the orange coveralls of the laborer, the reminder that this was once a prison and still was to some degree.

I acknowledged his words with all the expected politeness but to this day I don't remember anything he said. My social graces were limited to those required for my profession.

The rest of the day passed in a monotonous blur until the signal rang out its announcement that my shift was finally at its end. I walked out the doors joined by all the others whose shifts had also ended. As usual the cyber-car was not there. Its job was to get you to your job. Getting back home was on your shoulders.

I was hungry and decided to use that hunger as an excuse to continue getting the lay of the land. I turned to a man beside me and asked: “Say, do you know of any good places to eat?”

“Yeah at home. But if you really want to brave the local cuisine try Nellie's.”

I flagged down a cyber-taxi & climbed in “Where to, Bub?” The portly driver asked briskly.

“Um, some place called Nellie's?”

He chucked a little. “Heh heh, some place indeed.”

He drove along at almost a snail's pace avoiding the congestion. I memorized the route as best as I could in the fading light of evening's approach. It turned out that the mysterious restaurant was three blocks from my abode. It was a brick building with plate glass windows and corrugated tin roof, a metal chimney on the back corner of that roof exorcized smokey phantoms and the incense of finely cooked meals wafted through the air. Above the door was neon calligraphy that spelled out Nellie's in bright pink. The cabbie asked if I wanted to wait but I dismissed him and paid him his fair of 5 musk coins.

I'm not really certain what I expected Nellie's to be like on the inside but it turned out to be pretty posh given the environs it was nestled in. The walls were a sort of yellowish white & stained by much grease. There was beautiful brown wood trim around the walls. And the floor was alternating white and black tiles forming a checkerboard pattern!

The rows of tables were draped with white table cloths and decorated with candle lit centerpieces. Nearest the entrance was a table different from its companions. It was rectangular and large enough to house an entire thanksgiving feast. It was draped with a burgundy tablecloth and a large sign resting in the center declared, RESERVED.

I took in these details between the time a little chime announced my arrival and the moment that a woman emerged from a door that said, MANAGER ONLY. The woman in question looked like the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. Her hair was short and blond and beautifully arranged. She was clad in a dress of shiny, pink silk, its bodice framed an ample chest and taking her in stirred feelings in me I hadn't felt since the first time I fell in love at a younger, stupider age.

“You must be Nellie,” I said.

“That's correct. You must be new here. Why don't you join me at my private table.” The lady indicated the one with the reserved sign.

I chose a chair and she sat down next to me with suave, graceful motions. She signaled a man standing nearby. He was clad in the attire of a waiter: white button-up shirt, black pants, matching shoes.

His features marked him as having Italian ancestry and his voice tipped me off that he'd once lived in New York. “Bernie, dear, bring us two Alfredo’s–regular, not shrimp– and a vintage merlot please.”

I was secretly miffed that she would order for both of us but this was her establishment and she should know what was good. Besides, she had invited me to her private table. She called after the waiter, “Bernie, tell Dex to turn on the music!”

She stared at me with deep blue eyes. I asked her the question that was foremost on my mind, “So, Ma'am why did you invite me to your table?”

“Well, whatever your name is-”

“Tom”

“Well, Tom, it's my restaurant and I can do whatever I darn well please. Plus you're the most handsome thing that has walked through that door all month!”

There was a seductive undertone in her statement. That cauldron that had been lit and stirred up when she entered the room was beginning to bubble inside me. She continued speaking, “Everyone's got a story. You take Bernie for example; he was a stool pigeon back on Earth. He made enemies of too many crime families. The powers that be shipped his butt up here for safe keeping.”

She paused as music wafted through the air; it was cosmo-jazz. She must have noticed my grimace because she asked “You don't like cosmo-jazz?”

“Not for me but like you said it's your place.”

“You learn quickly. I learned something about you just now. What else should I know about you, Tom?”

“What would you like to know?”

“What were you before? On the home planet I mean.”

“A con artist.”

“Oh so you've got many stories.”

“That's right Nellie. You give me long enough and I could have any of these two bit wannabes eating from my hand.”

“Intriguing, Tom. Do you plan on running the colony?”

“Don't tempt me. No, I'll find a game soon.”

“Why a conman?”

“People spent their lives screwing me over. Why shouldn't I return the favor? Why shouldn't I take the world to the cleaners when that's all it's ever done to me?

“I learned long ago that if you really want something you've got to snatch it from someone who's already snatched it from another someone. You can either do it by blowing their brains out and taking it off their corpse or you can speak the right words and leave them alive to think about what they've lost.”

“That's a rather dreary outlook, Mister. You could use some sunshine in your life.”

“Nellie, you try living in the Midwest like I did & you'll find out sunshine doesn't mean squat. It can be beaming down and still be as cold as Stalin's heart.

“You learn that around the same time you learn knights weren't really all that noble and that some folks just can't be saved.”

Further discussion of philosophical mores were put on hiatus due the arrival of our pasta. Each bite was euphoric to my palette. “Not bad.”

The woman smirked and her eyes became wolfish. “Thanks but these are not the only delights I offer.”

“Really?”

“I also cater to pleasures of a more….carnal nature.”

The wolf was circling its prey but this moose was no easy game. “So you're a hooker?” I asked with all the bluntness of a dull knife.

“I'm a madam if you must know!”

Bingo.

“I've got my girls of course. They turn the tricks.”

“And meanwhile you run this eatery?”

“That's not all, Tom. I also have a brothel set up. It runs on a subscription system of sorts.”

“Hmm, like certain websites on Earth.”

“Will you let me finish!”

I clamped my pie hole shut and let Nellie finish her exposition. “My customers pay for different tiers. One level gets them a chat & so on. Eventually if they spend enough they get promoted to VIP which gets them a one night stand sort of.”

“What do you mean, sort of?

“A.I. Tom, that's what. I have dozens of androids that look, act and sound like me. They do the chatting and shaging.”

“Do your customers know it's not really you?”

“I have a feeling most do but couldn't care less. Most of the men–and let's not be coy– some of the women who come my way are just looking for a sexual fix.”

“So they open their pockets and your androids and girls open their legs.”

That ticked her off. She slapped the snot outta me. My cheek felt like I'd rented it out a colony of fire ants. “Have you no class or did it get replaced with your cynical disposition?”

“I've got lots of class; school is just out for the summer.”

She twirled noodles on her fork and ingested them.

I continued speaking, ”Color me curious. Does the High Warden know about your enterprise?”

“If I had to guess, he does to a degree. He knows about the androids but not much about my girls. He probably figures if they're spending money on me they'll be too broke to buy contraband.”

“So a blind eye gets turned.”

“Pretty much yeah.”

I was going to ask another question when two young ladies charged into the restaurant like hell were nipping at their heels. If their facial expressions and body language were anything to go off of it may very well have been.

The duo were a brunette and a more petite lady with chestnut hair in curls. They were definitely shapely and clad in attire that could have made a blind man swoon.

Their eyes were wide in panic and fear, their ample chests heaved up and down in harsh rhythms with the struggle to regain lost breath. The handful of other patrons looked at us curiously. Nellie addressed them in a harsh voice, “This is private business. Go back to your meals.”

In a softer voice she addressed her street walkers. I stepped away from the table as though to leave but something caused me to stay. I had no doubt those girls had seen every shade of ugly Grifter's End had to offer so whatever had caused them to feel the utter terror I saw painted on their sweat drenched faces must be mighty bad news.

Nellie and the girls talked in low voices but my ears were mighty keen. “Heather, Tiffany, what's wrong, where's Carly?”

“We were working the park like you asked and we flirted with some guys and then Carly screamed! We turned and she was gone.

“We used the summon box and when the authorities arrived they didn't find anything.”

“This is disturbing. We've got to find Carly but I don't think the authorities are going to care about a missing floozie enough to be thorough. “Maybe I can help,” I said voluntarily.

Nellie looked at me incredulously. “What could you possibly turn up the guardsmen didn't?”

“I don't know maybe Carly or some clues as to who took her. You see I've got certain powers of observation and unlike these G.I. Joes around here I just might give a crap.”

“Fine go be Philip Marlowe.”

“On it, Nellie. Just two things: what's a summon box & how far is the park from here?”

The park was a ten minute walk & located on the outermost edge of the city. I made the ten minute walk in five. As for a summon box it wasn't some occult artifact but rather like an old timey police call box.

Now why would a self absorbed con artist give a hill of beans about a prostitute he didn't even know and offer to investigate? Well for now let's just say I have a few secrets and keep it there.

The park was mostly abandoned except for some joker in a long flowing white tunic sitting on a bench beneath a street light. He saw me sniffing around and butted in. “What are you doing sir?”

“I'm looking for someone who's lost!” I said grumpily.

“All who come here are lost. But one day Father Abraham will come and emancipate our mortal souls from these fleshly shackles.

“He will descend with-”

“An army of angels I know. Some old coot at your temple did everything but give me a tract.”

“Do not blaspheme He was Christ reincarnated, The Great Emancipator!”

I had more pressing concerns than arguing with a moronic cultist. I scoured the park for clues when all of a sudden…. Jinkies I found one! I found a blood trail. The guards would have found it too if they'd looked hard enough but obviously they didn't.

I followed the grisly trail like a huntsman seeking a slain deer. I came to the end of the trail and almost wretched up my alfredo. I saw behind some tall bushes what had once been a beautiful blonde woman now twisted into some gory human pretzel that torture porn films couldn't replicate. On what may have been her arm I saw a colossal hand print. How could a human outside of possession have enough strength to turn a hooker into something that would give the killer in the Saw movies nightmares?

I found the call box. It had three buttons: one for the guardsmen, one for a taxi, and one to hang up. It should be obvious which button I pressed. After an eternity a black cyber-car rolled up & vomited out a small patrol. I was grilled like shrimp but at last they seemed convinced of my story and told me to get lost. They probably didn't want to keep me out past curfew which would have been a different type of headache for them.

Once I'd returned to Nellie's the restaurant turned into a funeral parlor. “I'm going to meet with all my girls tomorrow. Tiffany and Heather, you room with me tonight. I don't think the authorities give a crap about where you sleep so long as it's off the streets.”

I left them to their grief and once I was back at my digs I collapsed into a tormented sleep where the fettuccine noodles wrapped around me like boas and dragged me down into a black pit with scattered bones and skulls issuing demonic laughter as they held up mirrors that caused me to see different reflections which was no doubt twisted metaphor for my false identities. The laughter morphed into the sound of the morning alarm clock.

The macabre eurotrash horror movie that streamed through my brain the previous night caused me to go about my workday in a trance-like state. I was more zombie than man when I entered the bar where I had punched that self-centered schmuck a few days ago. Once again I ordered a cider from the bartender whose name I actually got this time(it was Yancy) and chose my seat. This time I took a booth and hoped I didn't have to fight someone over it again. I just wanted to relax and the thought of throwing hands was utterly unappealing.

I sat nursing the only alcohol I ever allowed myself to consume up until Nellie had given me my first sip of wine. It was cider and would always be cider. As I nursed that cider I was still zombified but my humanity was restored by what happened next.

Another patron entered the bar. He was dressed in the attire of the guardsmen of this world albeit more disheveled. His Jacket was unbuttoned exposing the tee-shirt underneath. He held his beret in his hand and wore no gas mask on his grizzled face. I briefly glimpsed his name patch but need not have bothered. Yancy addressed him immediately & that indicated to me that he was a regular, “Preston how nice to see you.”

“Yeah, Yeah, just give me my usual and keep them comin’ “

So Preston situated his bulky frame on a barstool and began flaunting around a gargantuan stack of musk coins as he tossed his beret onto an empty stool. Yancy’s eyes leaped to the ceiling with an exclamation of: “Holy Hannah! Where'd you get that much scratch?”

“Someone I knew died unexpectedly and left it to me. Tragic really but it's more than the military paid me.”

I didn't believe a single syllable of that– at least not the last part– but I sat quietly and let the man go off on his rant.

“I mean come on I fought in the War of the Northern Border and then I joined the space force just to get my butt stuck babysitting delinquents on Space Australia!”

Many angry stares were tossed in his direction for that last statement but he didn't notice. I could tell already I wasn't going like this fellow. Still I had to know where the money came from and as he was leaving I followed him to the door and in a clandestine voice I spoke to the drunken behemoth. “Say, pal, where'd you really get that stack of mula? If there's some kind of game in town I want in.”

He glowered down at me and replied “Mind your own bee's wax before I smash your face,you presumptuous little frick.”

Cuddly as a cactus and charming as eel this one was. I took the hint but I wasn't going to let things go so easily. Money, like rivers, has a source & I was determined to find it.

The subsequent afternoon found me at Nellie's again except this time I was inside the other half of her business having stormed through the door marked manager only.This was not only her brothel but also her living quarters. I wove my way past rooms filled with android duplicates in various states of dress. Occasionally one would notice me & make some flirtatious gestures.

So this is what was becoming of Artificial Intelligence. I had called it a long time ago but my words fell upon deaf ears. This was Nellie's subscription service at work. I also passed a few of Nellie's girls. I wasn't sure but I think one of them smacked my butt. Soon– past as the fake affection and velvet draped decadence- I found her living room. It was the same sterile white as my own, but she'd taken the time to doll it up with luxurious furniture and swanky decor such as the lamp standing in one corner with its stand designed as two twisted spirals of metal merging together.

She was sitting on a luxurious sofa petting one of the weird, three-eyed, cat-like creatures that were native to Grifter's End. She was not happy to see me judging from the look on her face. “Who let you in here?”

“I let myself in. I asked about you in the restaurant. They said you were busy here.”

She sighed heavily and, dropping her pet alien pointed behind me. I followed her finger with my eyes & lo and behold there was a door to my right. “Next time use that door. It's a side entrance my friends and acquaintances use instead traipsing through my boudoir.”

“I'm impressed Nellie, your androids look just like you.”

“Duh.”

“I'm amazed that you fit all this in one building.”

“It's bigger than it looks.”

“Oh the times you must have said that to someone.” I said wryly.

She was not amused by my innuendo.

“You beauregarded your way through my private business. That is a privilege reserved for my clients and working girls. Please, Tom get to the point.”

“I'm in need of some information. I imagine you've got some connections that could help me out.”

“Hmmm, fine. But you'll owe me something in return. What exactly do you want?”

Now she was all ears. So I laid it out in plain and simple terms, all business.

“When I was in Yancy's bar last night one of the soldier boys came inside and flaunted a huge stack of musk coins around.”

I said all this while pacing. The lady looked at me skeptically while continuing to gently stroke the striped fur ball at her side. “Ok so he was loaded, what of it?”

“He said he had just come into it. That someone died and left it to him.”

“Now that makes more sense. You're suspicious?”

“Exactly. I smell a con.”

“You'd know wouldn't you?”

“So would you, Nellie.” I retorted while jerking my thumb behind me to the black curtains that led into the carnival of sensual delights.

“Tom,” she gasped, “I don't know if I really like you or if I really want to slap the daylights outta you!”

She took a deep breath then gave me the scoop, ”I do know a guy. He was involved with one of my girls once. George Vanderbilt. He was a computer hacker back on Earth. He did his time here but old habits die hard.”

“How hard are we talking, Nellie?”

“Well he couldn't resist a challenge. Obviously we have no internet here and no cell phones. So Vanderbilt spends his time hacking the all seeing eyes of Grifter's End.

“If you want to track that man's movements he can do it.”

She opened a little note pad on her coffee table and scribbled something hastily before ripping out the page and handing it to me.

“That's his address. Once you get there, destroy it. Why do you want to track this so badly anyway?”

“It might give me something juicy to hold over his head.”

Just then a soulless twin of the woman I was speaking to just entered from behind the curtain clad in a sheer frock and addressed her madam in an almost perfect duplication of her voice. “Your subscriber Hank O'Fallon is finished for the night. I told him I was changing.”

“Very good Nel 56.” I'll see him out.”

She rose from the couch. “Goodnight, Tom.”

There was no warmth in that phrase. I took the hint and my leave using the side entrance. This was near the rear end of the restaurant that was more than just a restaurant. There was still a little daylight left so I flagged a taxi and rode to the address Nellie had written down, a small brown building in housing district 2.

I knocked and the door was opened by a skinny twig of a man. He was Caucasian and his ginger hair was trying to resurrect a style that went extinct after the 2000’s. His mannerisms indicated a diet of caffeine and paranoia. “I'm sorry, is there something I can do for you?”

“I don't know, Mister Vanderbilt is there? Nellie says there is.”

He relaxed but not a lot and ushered me in. The air was stale and reeked of perpetual bachelorhood with little or no interference from the opposite sex! The living room was dirty and ill kept. The only light was locally sourced from the fading sun penetrating through the window blinds.

I gave him the low down and, using a device he called Horus which resembled a V.R. headset he filtered through security cam footage while I gave him a description of my target. After an eternity he shouted "Eureka!”

He placed Horus on my own noggin and I retraced the steps of the unruly Space Force veteran. He was in some room in some shipping building, gambling with a bunch of civilian men. I watched the game play out and once he'd won. He drew his submachine gun and proceeded to nonchalantly murder the other players and then took out the security cam.

I ripped off the headset. “Crap.”

“You can say that again, sir. Try watching it live.”

I paid the nerd a little and left. The guards weren't supposed to gamble. He knew this and had eliminated all witnesses or so he thought. There was another witness however who had watched the whole thing unfold from miles away. I had no intention of confronting the perp with intel. That would be foolish. I simply filed this away in my mind for future use.

While watching the crime unfold I carefully observed each location that Preston had walked and reconstructed the route in my mind's eye, not being content to let this matter rest. So starting at Yancy’s I worked my way backwards retracing the killer's steps. Either I'd guess correctly and come upon the crime scene or wander aimlessly through Grifter's End. It was fifty-fifty with a healthy dose of blind luck.

Just as the light of day was dipping over the horizon of the celestial sphere I walked on I found myself across the street from a warehouse. That warehouse was surrounded by the guardsmen who scurried about it like gas mask wearing ants. Several black lumps littered the sidewalk. These were picked up by teams of two and loaded into the back of a cyber-van— body bags!

Gruesome as the scene was, it did show me that the highest echelon of the colony's social hierarchy could be motivated to do their job when the proper crime presented itself just as I established previously. Doing my best to evade detection I made the trek back to my taxpayer provided domicile. Once back in the barebones apartment my mind was racing with a myriad of thoughts and observations and juicy tidbits vying for first place in a high stakes mental triathlon.

Walking into my bedroom I pulled the top draw of my nightstand and removed the one personal item besides my suit I was allowed to bring with me from Earth: a journal. It was old fashioned pen and paper not the digital ones that flooded the market on Earth. This was penned in my own hand and could not be deep faked or altered in any way unless it was to be copied down elsewhere.

The pen danced upon the paper like an elegant ballerina. I worked feverishly on each paragraph & sentence and punctuation mark that had ever been the bane of my existence. I stopped only when I saw it was time to start getting ready for bed. At that point I laid out a meticulous account of useful information as has already been read here.

One day after quitting time, the cycle was at last broken by two men in three piece, black suits and dark tinted sunglasses standing like grim statues outside my door. “Agent J and Agent K, to what do I owe this visit?” I asked in a snide way.

If they got my reference they didn't acknowledge it. Instead “K” answered, “Thomas MacGaven, the High Warden wishes to meet with you.”

Well wasn't this interesting. Without explanation nor option I was escorted to a black cybercar. The MIB sat to my right and left with me in the center. A fourth man, the driver who looked just as jolly drove off beginning our journey to parts unknown.

I couldn't help but break the silence. “So where's the talking pug?”

“They didn't tell us he was mouthy,” said one of my chaperones. His companion replied dryly, “No they did not.”

I could tell trying to get anything from these guys would be a colossal waste of time so I just sat back until we reached a multi-level, sterile white building. It was here the vehicle eased to a halt and I was made to get out. I took stock of the environment and saw a fenced off complex about fifty yards adjacent to this building. It was the prison colony’s prison. So this was, as I took it, what passed as a capitol building for the colony. The glass doors were opened by guardsmen sans gas masks and my brooding companions flashed some sort of I.D.

Before I knew it I was in the spacious office of the High Warden.

A man with well combed, an all American square jaw, and a mustache that Stalin would have envied turned around in a high backed office chair and stood to his full height over a mahogany desk stacked with paperwork. I had seen this man before he was a legend on Earth, a veteran of the War of the Northern Border.

“George ‘Hardcase’ Delaney, Scourge of the Danes, How'd you end up running this outfit?”

My MIB escorts bristled like bathed cats until the Warden waved them away and they made a most welcome exit. Then he addressed me “Thomas MacGaven. They told me they were sending someone. I didn't know it'd be you.”

“Well, Sir here I am.”

“Which department are you with these days, CIA, DOGE, FBI?”

“Space Force.”

“So you're basically JAG for us stargazer types.”

Well now I guess my secrets are out. I'm not actually a conman. I'm one of Uncle Sam's truffle sniffing pigs. Only instead of edible fungus buried in dirt I sniff out corruption and malfeasance.

He invited me to sit down in a chair. I did and the thing practically ingested me but it was comfortable nonetheless. “Well, MacGaven here we are. Two legends in their own time face to face, concerned for the well-being of a forgotten piece of space rock.”

In case you're wondering, I served in intelligence during that aforementioned war. It cost me everything I held dear. It had swallowed my life and my life had become it. Adrift in an unsettled country I hopped from agency to agency never feeling at home in any of them, too much political b.s. and red tape.

“Let's not kid ourselves, Warden that Greenland business was a total debacle.”

“Maybe. Anyhow let's talk brass tacks shall we?

I've been swamped with my duties here but wanted to meet with you when the time was right. By the way did you get my gift?”

“Um, what gift?”

He made gestures to indicate that to which he referred. “About this big. Has a trigger?”

“That was YOU?”

“Yes. Once your I.D. was scanned into the system I sent one of my boys to deliver it.”

Well I guess that mystery was solved. “Tell me, how many people know who I actually am?:

“Just me and the guards in my innermost circle including the two gorillas that brought you here.”

“Good. I'd have preferred that nobody knew who I was but this is the way they wanted it in case something goes wrong. Now there's an elephant in the room we must address.”

“Ok, shoot.”

“I met Nellie.”

He twitched ever so slightly and then said rather hastily, I don't know her. I've heard rumors that her restaurant was more than that but I wouldn't know who she was.”

“Well those rumors are true.”

“Hmm.”

“She brings us to another matter. One of her girls was murdered in the park and I had to practically bend the arms of the guards who investigated it to even look for clues.

“You're toy soldiers could use a wind up. I get most of you have been here since this place was built and you're worn down. Believe me I understand but it's hard to get people to sign up for this particular branch of the military when they still think the moon landing was a gosh darn snowjob.”

“I do appreciate the effort, MacGaven. I'll see about whipping our boys into shape.”

“Good. That'll bring us to my last point: one of your men is dirty.”

“How dirty?”

“Sewer pipes are cleaner.”

“Are you sure?”

“You just had a massacre happen right? It took place in a cramped office of a warehouse in a grungier part of town. A poker game went bad. It's a total blood bath, real Jackson Pollock looking aftermath.

“Except you don't know who did it because they shot out the security cameras. Well I do know it was.”

“ Dadgum! Spit it out, MacGaven!”

“Preston, I don't know his last name.” I gave him a description.

He sat down and put his hands together in a triangle. “I've always wondered about that one. He's a vindictive s.o.b. but to think… but how do you know this?”

“I've got my sources.”

“What sources?”

“Can't say. Won't say. They are my sources.”

“Fine, don't tell me then.”

“There'll of course need to be an indictment, tribunal, the whole kit and kaboodle.”

The old war dog now looked defeated.

“If it's any consolation, George. I think aside from the apathy and complacency that most of the soldiers here are still straight shooters no pun intended.”

“Thanks, MacGaven.”

“All and all I'd say it's quite a paradise these people have made for themselves. No cell phones, no TV and a chance at a fresh start.”

He glared at me and stood up and began pacing. “Only a cynic would see this place as paradise! They managed to build a colony here but somehow we can't find a way to establish communications with Earth outside monthly supply exchanges. We're nothing more than a bandaid on the conscience of the lobbyists back home. They send us more and more criminals and then they reform but they don't go home they stay here and it'll keep happening until we don't have prison overcrowding but prison colony overcrowding. “This isn't a full size planet so there is only so far we can build out and expand until we have to encroach on the farmland. And now not only is some psycho making human pretzels out of the citizens, I find out one of my guards is a dastardly murderer.”

“I guess that puts things into perspective.”

He turned to me with a pleading face. “MacGaven is Preston the one doing those awful killings?”

“No, I've only seen two. The hooker and another the other day in an alley. That reprobate is burly but I don't think he's physically capable of doing the damage seen on those bodies!”

“I was afraid of that. The truth is this has been happening sporadically for two years. We've dubbed the perp ‘the Shadow Killer’ because they strike either in a nocturnal fashion or in alleys. Unfortunately our investigation while still active has turned up bupkis.”

He paused, then asked me, “Will you help us find this fiend?”

“It's not what I came out here to do but as a favor to a fellow veteran I'll do my best.”

“Thanks.”

“None necessary. By the way, when did that oddball cult arrive here?”

“The Lincoln fanatics? About five years ago. They formed on Earth. They tried to give some sort of tent meeting in front of the Lincoln Memorial but the cops ran them off. Eventually they hopped on a shuttle and ended up here. They seem harmless enough.”

“Maybe not. I saw one of them in the park the night that Nellie's prostitute was mangled.”

“MacGaven watch out! They don't take kindly to people snooping around.”

“Why if they're not hiding anything?”

“People are strange.”

“Sure.”

So I left there, my mission here taking a turn I had not anticipated but life doesn't come with GPS.

The cat’s out of the bag now I suppose. Now you know why I was hellbent on rushing to the park to investigate that night at the restaurant. I had stepped off in it this time. This was supposed to be a routine probe into the colony that had stood on its own for so long. Now I was up to my private parts in a mystery involving a serial killer who could make modern art pieces out of human bodies. I'd seen a lot of ugly in my life but I was unsure if I wanted to even contemplate what it would take for a person to have the strength necessary to mangle and contort those bodies. I'd only seen two but now I knew there had been others.

It didn't look real good for Hardcase that the watchmen were so worn down and complacent and jaded that they couldn't find a murderer in a cramped city like Grifter's End. I'd also noted his reaction when I named dropped Nellie. I knew he wasn't being entirely transparent about his knowledge of her. I chalked it up to her being right. When it came down to it was it worse for the denizens to blow money on boobs or illegal weapons?

Personally I'd have preferred neither of those options but as the folks back on Earth were so fond of saying it is what is! Even after I made it back to my apartment and was settled in, my mind was still whizzing around in circles like a merry-go-round.

I sat my hump on the couch, switched on the light strip beneath it for ambiance and tried to unpack all that was stuffed into the luggage rack of my mind.

I hadn't been entirely dishonest with Nellie that first night at her establishment. Life on Earth had not been kind to me especially in the postwar years. The truth is Tom MacGaven as everyone knew him had perished in that war. What remained, what was now sitting in lavish prisoner housing at the rear-end of the Galaxy was a ghost play acting as though he were still a man.

Meeting Warden Delaney had stirred up memories I had tried for so long to erase. I made the mistake of falling in love during my time as an intelligence officer. The nation was in apocalyptic upheaval from North Dakota all the way down to Missouri. I moved my lady love into my little bachelor pad in Kansas, somewhere I thought she'd be safe until things cooled off.

I was so darn good at my job that the Danes and Canadians put a bounty on my head. If I had any sense I would have told my girlfriend to get out of my life and pretend she'd never heard of Thomas MacGaven but instead I was a love blind fool. I stashed her in my house still enjoying the thoughts of our future marriage.

One day I had an occasion to return home for a brief leave. I was unable to contain myself like a hormonal teenage boy staring at a bikini calendar. I was going to elope with her that very day. I knocked on the door but nobody answered. I called her name and silence replied.

Even as my gut churned like a rough sea I called her cell phone and heard it ring from inside. I didn't even bother unlocking my door. I pulled out my glock and kicked the door open with a sound of thunder and splintering wood. Deathly silence followed. I gripped my gun in both hands and made my way inside. Laying in a heap between my living room and the small kitchen was the woman of my dreams.

From around the corner whirled a person in black clothes and a matching ski mask. They lunged forward with a bayonet. I squeezed the trigger on instinct and just as the point of that sinister blade was inches from my face the attacker fell dead at my feet! I tore the ski mask from their face and recognized Antoine Kirkman, a French-Canadian assassin. I unceremoniously kicked the lifeless Canuck out of the way and scooped my love up in my arms. I was far too late. He'd taken her out with a shot between the eyes that left an exit wound in the back of her cranium. To this day I can not eat meat sauce on my pasta.

You know the rest. I spent my post years bouncing from agency to agency. The truth is like I said I was just a ghost play acting being alive. Now in double billing I starred as both a con artist and a detective. I'd have to be the one without casting suspicion on the other and be the other to cover for the one.

At least I had solved the mystery of the gun in my welcome package. The Warden was foolish for that! Suppose I got caught with it? It would blow my cover or lead to a mess of trouble. Still I would be carrying it from now on discreetly.

At last I had unpacked my thoughts. When I finished doing so it was later than I'd have preferred and a troubled sleep overtook me.

Eventually April 15 rolled around. My hump was planted firmly in a pew within the Cult's chapel. I had come to their special service held at a time that took into account the work schedule of the special guests such as myself. These guests were designated by the lack of a white robe or tunic or whatever it was these yahoo's were wearing!

The choir made up mostly adults with a small spattering of youth belted out a surreal sounding rendition of Father Abraham. Then the clergyman with little fanfare stood in that perversion of a pulpit and gave a passionate sermon on the life, death and eventual second coming of Lincoln. He made careful mention to those of us outside the flock that all these things had been revealed by Reverend Daniel Johnston, the chosen mouthpiece of Abraham Lincoln & founder of the faith.

“I implore you, my fellow humans, to throw off these fleshy shackles and make yourselves ready! The Great Emancipator who we know was Christ’s second manifestation is among us even now seeking a pure bodily vessel to usher in his triumphant return!”

This was no con job. He was zealous. He fervently believed each word spewing from his mouth. I could tell many of the other guests were being drawn in too. I had little doubt he could have presented a serving tray with cups of laced flavor aid and they'd have reenacted Heaven’s Gate right here and now.

I quietly excused myself from the madness and upon exiting the sanctuary I decided to snoop around. People this deep into fanatical lunacy had to be hiding something. My gut was just telling me it was so. At first nothing really seemed amiss but as I approached one particular door that seemed conspicuous due to the coded lock I was cut off and intercepted by the creepy old man from the other night, the one that had sat upon the steps and hollered his doctrine at me. “Watcha doing?” he asked in a manner that was more a threatening demand than a question.

“I was looking for the bathroom.”

“Oh in that case my good fellow I'll show you the way.”

He placed his hand on my shoulder with pressure applied and escorted me to a door. He opened it and shoved me through it. It slammed shut behind and I was in the alley I'd walked through the night I discovered this place. Now I knew these creeps were hiding something.

Anybody else under the circumstances would have written this incident off. Maybe that was a food pantry or something, after all these people did seem to do charity around the colony (though it was probably to draw in followers) and the old cook thought I was trying to burgle the chapel. In this case the blade of Occam's razor was dull. I had gotten too close to something these “emancipated souls” didn't want disclosed.

Something was fishy here and it was threatening convicts and reformed settlers alike. I'll admit after having a fruitless two year investigation dropped in my lap my evidence was not really impressive. All I really had to go on was three things – first: I found a mangled hooker in the same vicinity as one of these Lincoln worshipers. Second: I had learned that the killings had begun two years after the cult's arrival on Grifter's End. Third: I had gotten thrown out by a devout old codger for getting too curious.

That itemized trio could be chalked up to good old fashioned coincidence but my gut said no and so far in my way too long career the gut had rarely ever led me down the wrong path. I had dots I just had to connect them & that presented a new set of complications.

I had a clue I could follow but without any computer and a month long communications gap with my outside man how in blazes could I research the man named Daniel Johnston? He was my best lead and I was up creek without a paddle. I decided to leave the lonesome alleyway and think things over at Yancy’s.

Alcoholic beverages dull the senses therefore I was busy nursing a tall cold glass of club soda. During my contemplation of the matters at hand it occurred to me I'd have to make the best use of the resources I had at hand. While they may be few, it was a matter of quality not quantity. I had access to two hubs of information so I would play yet another character in this drama, the curious onlooker.

I left my booth to talk with the bartender. “Say Yancy I've got a question?”

“What's on your mind?”

“I don't know man. I just left that service at the Emancipated Church or whatever it's called and it was…. strange.

“They're kind of all up in my noggin. Do you think they actually believe that stuff?”

He answered frankly, “I think it's a load of horse pucky! Hubbard had his space alien and these nuts have Abraham Lincoln.”

“Supposedly their doctrines were divine revelation from someone called Daniel Johnston ever heard of him?”

“Nope. I wouldn't know him from Adam. I think his revelation came from a less than holy crack pipe.”

Well this was a dead end. “Yeah that's just what I thought, Yancy.”

Stymied, I finished my club soda and returned to my apartment. I found a wrapped box on the kitchen table. Opening it with haste I discovered some sort of skinny speaker almost the size of a marker with a button on the side. A note was included on which the following had been written: “Tom, I know like the gun that gifting you this is risky but I thought it'd help us communicate since there's no phones here. Contact me when next you can__The Warden”

OK. Yes this would help. I went ahead and pressed the button. “MacGaven is that you?”

“Yes, Sir it's me.”

“Terrific. Have you found out anything?”

“Do you know about someone named Daniel Johnston?”

“Only that he was briefly in the news,for what I cannot remember. Why do you ask?”

I gave a brief explanation.

“MacGaven I'm warning you not to poke that hornets nest!”

“It's my job, Warden. You wanted me to solve a mystery that you and your men couldn't for two years. As far as I'm concerned these followers of Honest Abe are involved in some way.”

A brief silence that indicated a bruised ego. Then: “What do we do about Preston?”

“For now let him sit on his blood money. I’ll make my scheduled report to my outside man that'll give the perp ample time to think he's gotten away with the whole thing before the bust.”

“Ok. That's your jurisdiction. If that's what you think we should do I'll go along.”

After that we signed off.

The colony had secrets and it was not going to give them up willingly. If I wanted to learn what the cult was hiding I was going to have to work for it, dig deeper.

I wore my coat everywhere I went with my contraband firearm nestled securely in an inner pocket. The strange neon strips sewn into it cast an odd illumination wherever I went. On this particular night late April after a full two weeks of dead-end investigation,that somewhere was Nellie's restaurant.

A sign on the door announced a special dinner theatre. It turns out this particular day was the day the farmers drove their skiffs into the neon jungle to sell their produce(I know because I'd been reassigned to inspect the quality of the surplus going to Earth).

Therefore the entertainment was for the benefit of the farmers. I entered Nellie's and was accosted by the sounds of hooping and hollering and the occasional vulgar remark following in the wake of a cat call. One of the waiters showed me to the private table, explaining that the staff had been ordered to hold this one for me anytime I came here, a fact which shocked me considering the terms the lady and I had left off on.

I took my seat and put in an order for something on the lighter side. Then I discovered the sources of the whistles and vulgarity. Nellie–or maybe one of her A.I. robots– was giving the clientele a glimpse of her other business. To the rhythms of cosmo-jazz she was dancing and wearing a barely legal, navy blue outfit that sent hormonal thrills surging through the farmers like tidal waves.

I wondered how many of these men had families, wives but it wasn't my business. She caught a glimpse of me and halted her voluptuous gyrations. “Well boys,” she began in a honey voice, “We've got a newcomer among us tonight who doesn't care much for this cosmo-jazz. Darnell, play something he might like more!”

Darnell who I guess was in charge of the musical accompaniment bathed that restaurant in up beat jazz music. It wasn't quite big band but it was dang near close and Nellie resumed her one woman cabaret. Her skimpy evening gown offered tantalizing views of her features and I began to sweat especially when her routine brought her over to my table and she stopped just shy of giving me a lap dance.

An eternity later she ended her routine and kicked off a lusty firestorm by making an announcement, “Now fellas, whoever puts up the highest amount of money tonight gets me all to themselves for the rest of the evening in my private chambers.”

All the farmers and even a few non farmers yelled out extravagant amounts until one man in plaid and overalls yelled “$670!”

The blonde bombshell settled on him. I knew he'd be knocking up a robot tonight. “See you later tonight, handsome.” she purred while caressing the man’s face with a velvet finger.

I thought the poor lug would melt into a gooey puddle. Then with feline grace she approached me.

She leaned over the regal table and I noticed a trickle of sweat snaking down my back as I tried to keep my eyes fixed on hers. She noticed my efforts and remarked “Hey, pal my cleavage is down there.”

I gave in briefly. Wow. Her chest was ample and finely shaped. I let out a sigh and returned my gaze to the upper portion of her body. She spoke again. “There, isn't that better? Nice to see you again, Tom.”

“It has been a while hasn't it?” I replied. I polished off a final bite of my meal and then added, “I can't figure out if you like me or not given how our last encounter concluded?”

That mountainous chest of hers heaved with a heavy release of breath and she answered, “Can you blame me after you traipsed through my business without invitation?”

“No I can't.”

“Good then that's settled! You just use that side entrance,don't be such a gloomy gus, and we'll get along swimmingly.”

She signaled the waiter and ordered for herself a choice beverage.

Then she asked me what brought me to her establishment.

“Same thing as last time.”

“Of course why, Tom, why would you make a social call?”

Bernie brought Nellie her liquor and she downed a sip as I replied, “I thought you said I couldn't afford you.”

“You can't,” she said sitting down her glass, ”but swing by here more often and we'll see how things progress. Anyhow, what sort of information can I cough up for you tonight?

“I attended that wacky service the Abe worshippers held the other day. It's all rubbish but I'm curious about the founder of their faith, some dude by the name of Daniel Johnston.”

Her face wrinkled “I can't tell you anything about him . I came to Grifter's long before the cult was founded, I was one of those women who came to…. keep the men occupied.”

Another dead-end. I glanced at the farmer who'd won his prize, “You know Nellie you are slick. That poor guy thinks he's about to rearrange your guts and it's actually going to be a bunch of circuits.”

“I guess you'd admire that sort of thing in your line of ‘work’,” she replied.

We said our goodbyes and I departed her restaurant with my head spinning, my temples pounding like drums. Feelings that died with my girlfriend during the war had suddenly been resuscitated. That was not necessarily a positive outcome.