Sci-Fi - Enric the Runaway

"I was given this really great science fiction/superhero book not long ago and it sparked up some inspiration for my Sci-Fi story something fierce! I figured that I'd better get stuff written down while inspiration was flowing and it turned into two whole chapters about my character Enric (only one of which is posted here because of certain reasons). He's part of the secondary cast." -Casey

Enric rinsed his hair out in the bathroom sink and then proceeded to dye it off with his handkerchief. He didn’t look much more presentable what with his slightly green completion and stained shirt, but at least his sense of propinquity was cleared up.

He reached into his pack and pulled out the jacket from his old school uniform. It had been folded up for so long that it was impossibly creased, but still totally recognizable thanks to the bright red and yellow colors of the university. He turned the jacket inside out, the inner layer a deep shade of blue, and put it on while looking it over in the mirror. It was clearly inside out.

He brushed his hair over the collar where the stitching was most visible hoping that no one would notice. He now looked perfectly the part of some drunken adolescent that had stumbled out of some party. Perfect.

He quickly exited the bathroom and made his way up the stairs of the elegant hotel lobby. From there he walked through the halls with an air of importance as if he was far too busy to acknowledge anyone he happened to come across. At last he found what he’d been looking for; a conference room. It was well after midnight, so there probably wouldn’t be anyone in to check on the place until the morning. Enric grabbed a hold of the door handle, but found it was locked. Lucky for him, it was the old fashioned kind that would need a precise shaped key to open it or a skeleton key that was only accessible to the hotel manager.

Enric gauged if there was anyone around and then ran his fingers over the lock. He imagined a skeleton key, a long flat edge with a single tooth at the end, until he felt the weight of the key in his hand. There was nothing there of course, no visible object or even the texture of an invisible one, just the weight of a single key. Enric stuck it in the lock without moving his hand and he heard the click of the door unlocking. He turned the handle again and this time he was able to push it open.

He glanced around in the dark for a moment before shutting the door behind him and turning on the light. He sighed with heavy satisfaction when he saw the buffet table covered in trays of leftover food over to his left. There were no clean plates available, but there were plenty of dirty ones just left at various tables and end tables across the room. Enric picked up the cleanest of these and wiped it off with a discarded napkin. Not the most sanitary means, but he didn’t really care about that at this point. He scrapped what food he could from the buffet trays and then sat down at a nearby table to eat.

It was a viable feast compared with the scraps he’d been living on for the past week. He finished off three serving of the scraps and then stuffed whatever else he could into his pack for later. Sadly, most of the food was perishable, but at least it would get him through tomorrow. He settled down on a couch in the right-hand corner of the room and then dug into his pack for his scanner. The device displayed a news report about the usual violence of the city, police chases, property damage, and a kidnapping. As he should have expected by now; the kidnapping report was about him and his brother. He never used to care about his family being followed by the media, but he was now eager to hear if there had been any developments since his father had refused the ransom.

“We were told only days ago that authorities did in fact have the elder boy in custody,” the reporter informed him. “However, the police department just released a statement saying that Jk’son Tr’lok died just the morning in a botched escape attempt.”

Enric had hung on this reporter’s every word the day before last when they claimed to have his brother, but now the words were nothing but deceitful in his ears. He’d gone down to the police to try and help his brother, but Jk’son had never been with them. It had all been a trap set by federal agents to draw him out of hiding and he had fallen for it. He supposed that the “botched escape attempt” was their cover for the damage he had caused in his own escape from their custody.

His father appeared on screen, dressed in his finest clothes and announcing his sorrow over the matter, though there wasn’t even a trace of remorse in his words. The man had never been overly emotional, but didn’t he care at about the lies he was being fed? Enric switched the scanner off as he became convinced that his parents were somehow in on this whole conspiracy.

If they wanted him to believe that his brother was dead then that could mean that he had actually escaped them, right? If they had captured Jk’son they’d be using him as bait. He served no other purpose to them since Enric was the one with strange psychic powers.

Enric mulled over his use of the words “They” and “Them” when he thought of his pursuers. It was probably safe to assume that “They” were the government by now. Who else could be pulling the strings behind so many different agencies? If his enemy was in fact his own people, where could he possibly turn for help? Sneaking around hotels, hospitals, and other public places would only work for so long.

Then answer he came up with sent a shiver up his spine. The insurgency, groups of aliens that sought only to bring down the rule of the empire that protected them. They lived in relative peace outside of the solar system, outside of the law. All the propaganda against them insisted that the rebels were dangerous anarchists and that allying with them always meant chaos. They were against modern civilization and revolutionizing.

Enric kept repeating such things over in his head as he tried to fall asleep, but living outside of his people’s reach was starting to sound better and better. The enemy might even take him in solely because of his powers. Surely they could use a person with telekinetic abilities. That thought made him uneasy.

He fell into a restless sleep, dreaming about being pursued and caught by invisible forces that dragged him through the darkness. There was also a voice, a voice he’d been hearing in his dreams for weeks before he’d runaway. He could never make out what she was trying to say, but one word had become clear.

“Privileged”

 He was relieved when he was jerked back awake by a loud voice the next morning. A woman who was obviously a member of the hotel staff was standing in the doorway with a cart of cleaning supplies.

“What are you doing in here?” she demanded crossly.

“Not so loud,” Enric replied, putting his hand to his forehead with a pained expression while acting groggier than he actually felt.

“Did you fall asleep in here?” the woman asked, looking worried now.

“I do beg your pardon, miss,” he apologized as he got to his feet. “I wish I could explain, but…I’m not sure how I got here.”

Enric had never actually experienced a hangover and he was sure that he was doing a poor job of imitating one, but he hoped that being apologetic would win him some sympathy. He made up an excuse about leaving his key in his room and then headed passed the woman to supposedly talk to the clerk at the front desk. As soon as the woman was out of his propinquity he hurried back out onto the streets. He didn’t have the money to ride the rail, so he just started walking. He couldn’t be certain that he’d fooled the woman and he wanted to get some distance in case she called the police. At least he had gotten one good night of sleep and dinner out of that escapade.

Even if he wanted to leave the planet, he was at a loss as to how to do it. There were far too many failsafe in place to keep fugitives from fleeing the world. How was any person supposed to smuggle themselves off world? Enric smiled at the irony of needing a smuggler when his family owned a shipping company.

The young man stopped in his tracks, nearly getting himself knocked over by his fellow pedestrians before he snapped back from his realization. His family owned the largest shipping company in the galaxy. They had access to communications that spanned across dozens of solar systems. Surely they could get in touch with the insurgency. At the very least they could send out a call for help. The idea started forming into a plan. It’d be a lot harder than sneaking into a hotel conference room, but it was possible. He had heard his father fuss over the weak points in security first hand!

Now the only question was; what could he possibly say to the enemy forces that would persuade them to come to his aid? He was just a useless youth without a penny to his name on a planet that was strongly against the revolt. Would they even believe him if he told them he had special powers? He could still hardly believe it himself. Perhaps a slight amendment to the truth was in order.

Enric and Story (C) SuperheroGeek13