Dark Energy Supernova - An Anthology of SF SD Shorts

Gravity's Well

A/N: For Round 2 of the SFSD ver 6.0, used the following quotes, all in bold: Grp 1, Qt 2, Grp 2, Qt 3, Grp 3, Qt 3, Grp 4, Qt 4, and Grp 5, Qt 5 - yeah, not sure how it worked out that way, but there you go.  =)

She reached out and touched the dark liquid.  Instantly the sensors built into the tips of her gloves started sending data back to her implant and information started scrolling over her vision.  Blood type, DNA sequence, time it was spilled, ambient temperature and rad statistics; it was all there.  Everything that she wanted to know about the pool of drying blood in front of her.

"Damn it, Quinn, how can you stand to touch that stuff?" a rough male voice growled.  "Just watching you do it gives me the creeps."

Quinn sighed and glanced over at the living road block that was her partner.

"Sometimes you're such a little girl, Duncan," she dryly stated as she stood, wiping her glove on her leggings.  "I'm still surprised you actually fought in the Three Corners, one of the bloodiest wars in Humanity's history."

Tall, powerful and menacing in all black even in the overbright sunlight of Delta Level, Duncan shrugged thick, broad shoulders, a bemused expression on his chiseled features.

"I just kept running as I shot," he rumbled in reply, scrubbing a hand over his short-shorn hair.  "I didn't see the bodies hitting the ground."

Quinn shook her head and grimaced before glancing upward.  At this height, most of the planet's atmosphere was out of the way. 

Yet only a handful of stars were visible, thanks to the Gravity's Well.  The eggheads called it an externally sourced, Dyson sphere-style gravity bubble around the entire solar system, slapped into place by a vengeful alien federation after Humanist terrorists killed their ambassador in a nuclear attack.  The Well created an artificial gravity gradient that human technology had so far been unable to push through.

The aliens did it while saying they were protecting the rest of the galaxy from the extremely violent Human species.  Protection?  More like prison.  Especially so, three hundred years later.  A prison where the inmates were eating each other.

Quinn sighed and let her eyes drop to the crime scene she was now surveying.  Humanity's self-destruction was the reason cops like her were so damn busy.  They were a thin line trying to hold the insanity back.  Before Humanity gave up and destroyed itself in its frustration.

"How many murders have we tallied today, Dunk?" she asked, abruptly curious.  The powerful black man in his heavy, radiation-absorbing trenchcoat, turned back to her, a frown on his handsome face.

"I dunno, Q.  Sixty?  Seventy, maybe, and just on Delta Level.  I don't even want to know what's happening on the other levels."

Quinn sighed again and slowly shook her head.

"Me neither."  She let her eyes drop back to the pool of darkening blood.  So far they didn't have a body.  But that wasn't all that unusual in the bizarre environs of Delta Level, where easily disposable things like bodies quickly went missing.  And where law enforcement was regularly attacked by radiation-addled simplicants. 

She lifted her eyes up to make a quick scan of the black armored troopers that were standing at the ready all around them, their armor scratched and dented from hard usage.  Razorbacks; no inspector worth their pay went above Alpha without the heavily armed officers to watch their back.  She had twice the normal number with her and Duncan at this scene, and she hoped it'd be enough if the simplicants all around them decided to charge.

Quinn looked through the razorbacks at the uneasily shifting crowds on all sides.  Simplicants: human stock, genetically modified clones built for specific or simplified tasks.  Cheap to grow, they were supposed to be a disposable work force to be utilized in hostile environments.  Of course humans being humans, it wasn't long before people were figuring out how to abuse the simplicant process by creating clones to do other things beyond just work.

Again her gaze dropped to the pool of almost dry blood.  And now somebody was getting them to kill each other.

A soft peep sounded somewhere in her head and the results of a comparison her system automatically made of the DNA she sampled from the blood and the database back at headquarters appeared in her eye.  Seeing her stiffen, Duncan took a half step towards her, concern suddenly on his face.  She didn't tighten up like that unless she found something she didn't expect.

"DNA already get a hit on the d-base?" he asked.

Before Quinn could answer, white armored bodies were pushing through their thin line of razorbacks, military-grade weapons and gear marking them as government issue.  In their midst was a spare, rat-faced man, his features barely visible behind the rad shield flickering over his face where it sat beneath his white trench coat's shielded hood.

"Thank you, inspectors," the man said in the smooth tones of Alpha Level, where the rich and powerful lived,  "but my team and I will take it from here."