Chapter 13

The lady was sitting on the sidewalk in front of the apartment complex. Her eyes lit up like Roman candles when saw me walking towards her. She stood up hastily which caused the hem of her sundress to flap excitedly.

The guards patrolling the streets gave us laser eyes but said nothing as I invited her inside. Once we were inside I urged her to sit down. Her expression changed rapidly after she sensed that something was amiss. “What's going on, Tom? What happened?”

I unfolded the events leading up to our rendezvous. All color drained from her face and she sucked in a deep gust of air. Without a word she bolted to her feet and was out the door leaving me in the dust I tried to keep with her.

After what seemed like a lifetime of consoling her hookers she turned to the task of cleaning up the mess. Her space cat eyed me with its trinity of optics, regarding me with a scorn that seemed to be kin to that of an Earthly feline. I helped out where I could, then left before curfew.

During the following days things happened pretty quickly. Another ship from Earth arrived carrying a squad of military police! I witnessed the arrest of Preston. I stood across the street watching him being hauled away. He saw me watching and looked at me like an angry wasp thought he had no reason to connect me to his downfall.

I also received a visitor, it wasn't Nellie. It was a man in a dark blue suit and sporting a dour expression. He was all business and so was I. He handed me a manilla envelope. “Here is the information you requested, Mr. MacGaven. I must say it is quite unusual.”

“I know but I'm dealing with something unusual. There's something rotten in Grifter's End & I must root it out.”

Once I was back in solitude I opened the packet and began perusing through its contents. I'm sure my eyebrows spent a lot of time raised as I took in the I formation. Daniel Johnston had indeed been in the news. He was a scientist with radical ideas that would have made Victor Frankenstein jealous. His research and bizarre experiments were moth balled under a certain presidential administration leaving him in financial ruins. When the world did hear from him again it was a few years later.

Much of what I read was lining up with what the teenager had told me. He claimed in a personal blog online that he had received divine revelations about Abraham Lincoln being a manifestation of Christ and that he would return to liberate any who would accept this truth from the fleshly shackles that bound their soul to this superficial and shallow world.

It seemed crazy because it was. He'd managed to find a plethora of followers regardless. In a country still reeling from another pointless war his words struck a cord with certain people. The cult was doing everything but giving Scientology a run for its money until five years ago when Johnston was killed in a riot and the remnants of the cult apparently went to space to avoid “religious persecution.”

The records were indeed unusual. They also helped to confuse things as much as they shed light on them. The Reverend was dead yet a teenage member of his cult had mentioned him saying that he'd return as an avatar of Abraham Lincoln. Even with this many puzzle pieces I couldn't make out the picture being formed.

I attempted to contact the Warden but only static answered. I tried again an hour later but the same result. Obviously the man was busy. I decided to go eat supper at Nellie's restaurant. We wined and dined and I nearly kissed her but she stopped me and when I left it began to rain.

I do not know if it rained upon this planetoid before the terraforming process but it was certainly raining now and it became a priority to return to my confines ASAP! Nothing smells worse than wet leather except wet canines. In the still and quiet of my apartment I could hear the rain increase in intensity from a pleasant trickle into a pounding torrent. That made me drowsy and swept me off to sleep.

I slept until that blasted alarm woke me up. Well nothing to do now but go inspect circuit boards. It was foggy and humid from the rain and it was a long day that dragged by slowly like a zombie from the grave and it didn't get any better once I'd clocked out for the day.

My intention was to escape the humidity at Yancy’s but as I cut through an alley the hair on my neck raised and I heard shifty footsteps behind me. My right hand was inching its way closer to the gun hidden in my coat as I turned to look at my follower. All I saw was a ski mask sitting on top of broad shoulders before something hard and blunt whacked me upside my head causing my vision to become a planetarium and a fireworks display at the same time & after that a black void.