"Mac- put that glass on a coaster, will ya?" Why he'd thought the clear liquid wouldn't leave a mark was beyond him, but it was the young man's nature to make such mistakes. His hair mussed and his appearance further disparaged by the rumpled clothes he wore, Mackell could very well have lived in a trash compactor outside of the local cantina. So, under the suspended transparisteel ceilings and overlooking the skyscape of his city's most beautiful drop-off, the shore somehow beating back the tremendous Anji ocean waves, the boy seemed a self-persisting irony. Indeed, at age eighteen, freshly graduated from a private academy, Mackell was ready to move on to the next big thing- but not too fast... Disheveled as his clothes were, excessive late-night activities had nothing to do it; rather, he'd spent the last two days and nights in his home- he hadn't left the Raer Residence since his graduation party ended... While everyone else was out losing their minds to heavy drinks and spices, Mackell was waiting it out... Sweating it out, really- avoiding any and all temptation, though he half wondered if he would look back and feel it was all in vain some day...
"When's lunch?" Mackell, recumbent on the brand new sofa and legs propped up on the sacred java table, continued to flip past useless channels on the holoprojoector, hoping to find some long-lost holo-film from his childhood; then, at least, he'd have something to focus on for another couple of hours...
"What's it to you, rags?" Raef, the slowly graying father of Mackell, appeared suddenly from the kitchen, tossing a basket of old dish rags onto his son's exposed chest. Exhaling, the boy looked up at his father in a mixed expression of surprise and annoyance; he'd only expected a brief reply from his father, not an actual appearance-
leave me in my reverie, old man, he thought as he placed the basket to the side. "Clean up and dinner'll be ready in five; then you're ganna go to the refresher and really clean yourself up so you can drop those holofilms off and spend the evening in town..." Raef rubbed off the last of the cooking oils from his hands with one of the remaining rags as he nodded exuberantly; Mackell was not so thrilled...
***
The speeder was one of many graduation gifts; Mackell didn't know the first thing about how it really worked or what made the engines so popular, but he knew that it looked good and that he could take mighty fine care of it... Streaking through the aerial skyways, Mac felt like something of a fighter pilot; he recalled those times as a child when he would wish he could pilot the speeder so that he could just pander around, even if at only a slow pace... Now it was something he regrettably had to use on a daily basis... Well- for a couple of months, anyway. In only three months time he'd park the speeder and would be heading off to the University where he'd be studying progressive "adagi" painting, a style he'd come across three years ago in an art studio.
Mackell had been drawing since the beginning, and his passion for painting was a powerful one- he would be the most prolific painter on all of the continent if he could just start school... And, if nothing else, he would at least be attending the most famous and prestigious of the three schools- the University of Noval. However, since his grades in
other courses (courses not having the slightest relevance to art) were not the best, scholarships were beyond suspect. But Mackell was blessed with a rich father and a healthy trust fund; regardless of whether or not he knew the first thing about political procedures or the importance of soil conservation, Mackell was pretty well set. Mac smiled in spite of himself upon thinking this; he was certainly blessed.
The skyspeeder descended on the local landing zone, then taxied to a parking structure where Mac left it to cool down and keep out of the mid-evening sun. Exiting the structure, Mackell Raer made a b-line for the holo-film store, then began to make the slow, weary trudge toward upper-mid town, the area where his former grade-school friends would most likely be hanging out around this time...
As the sun passed behind a cloud and the sky seemed to deepen in the richness of it's blossoming red tones, Mac found himself climbing the final hill into the business district of Dason, home-town to the finest piseo shrimp baiters and catchers on the planet. Just past the kids joints lay the more serious restaurants, and then even farther down was the amusement parks, but Mac was heading for neither, and instead made a quick turn into a narrow alley. Not too far down the alley he found a porthole with a audio receptor key; simply by saying, "Hello," the port unbolted and began to roll back. Audio receptor keys had become something of a phenomenon and a rather popular item in the inner-city of Dason; this particular one was used to identify adolescents under the age of nineteen...
Stepping through the hole was like opening the door from a silent, enclosed house to the roaring party going on outside; Mac took a step inside only to lose himself immediately in the activity of the area. From wall to wall were bodies- jumping, shaking, acting as objects in the middle of Mac's road as he made his way to Ronnie, his best friend from school, at the bar. Trying not to push people over was hard, Mac soon found out, as he shoved his way between couples, the females giving dirty, demeaning glares, or simply not noticing... For those that simply didn't seem to care or notice, the answer was simple: spice- it was everywhere nowadays. When Mac was a kid, the incidence of spice abuse was fairly low with a couple of isolated incidents here and there, but that seemed a long way off now...
"Hey! Good to see ya buddy!" It was even hotter near the bar, and the fermenting drinks behind the counter were only adding to the dizzying effect that the undulating crowds of people had started.
"Yea! Thanks!" Mac was having to shout over the noise; he began to check his back pockets for an account card so that he might be able to buy a drink, even though he wouldn't hardly drink it... The drink would be more or less to help his friend feel comfortable taking down the hardest drinks right across from him.
Ronnie bobbed his head to the overbearing party music before appearing to have been struck by lighting- "So did ya here?"
"No, the purple one please," Mac was saying to the bartender as he flashed his id over the scanner. The bartender grabbed the medium sized lavender bottle, uncapped it and thrust it Mac's way; the boy was taken a little off guard but managed to catch the bottle before it flew over the railing. Saving the beverage and bringing it up to his lips, in some attempt to recover his pride, he looked cool over at Ronnie and queried- "Nope- what's going on?"
"It's Tiyana! The entire continent is over-run with imperial military personnel! We're being invaded!" Ronnie seemed to be laughing as he took another swig from his drink. Mac, on the other hand, didn't look amused-
"What was that? We're being invaded? Why? I thought we were under a peace agreement with the Empire!" If Ronnie had looked thunderstruck before, this would have blacked out the entire city-
"That's just it! You really didn't hear?" Ronnie even put his drink down as Mac narrowed his eyes slightly and pulled in closer so that he could hear.
"No, man! Just spit it out- what's going on?" Ronnie looked about the room, as if pondering whether or not he should go on... Dropping his voice so that the bartender couldn't quite make out what was being said, Ronnie leaned in close and said- "The Emperor has been killed! The Empire has been split into factions and someone wants our planet- so..." He leaned back and took another drink- "we're being invaded!" Mac seemed to lose focus in the crowd suddenly and all he could really hear was the confused and, perhaps nervous, chuckle from his oldest friend... If the imperials had taken Tiyana, it would only be a matter of time before they arrived on Mac and Ronnie's colony... What would they do? An image of a fruitless battle against the imperials flashed across Mac's mind; they couldn't defeat the imperials... There was no way... He took another drink.
