This is a story I've been working on since I was without internet for the past nine months. The style I'm trying to invoke with how chapters are presented is similar to how TV shows like Heroes bounce from one character to the next while still maintaining the overall storyline. I'm not sure if it works at all in my story I've written, but I hope you enjoy it. Here's the first part, wherein we meet two of our characters, Dex Fitzroy and Mia Carina.

Stories From Jupiter

By

Kyle Muldoon

[T] Violence, Sexual References, Coarse Language




Dex Fitzroy and Mia Carina

Orange clouds swept by below Dex Fitzroy. He looked down through the bar’s transparent floor. Clouds all the way down. Down to what, no one knew for sure. There were stories, legends told by old men who thought they were wiser than they actually were. No two stories were the same, everything from solid gold to an airless nothing. Dex wondered why they even bothered with these transparent floors. Whatever was down there, you couldn’t see it from up here. He took a sip of his drink. Milk. Chocolate. It always raised eybrows and tempers when he ordered it. The idea that people are angry, are offended, by a man’s choice of drink bewildered Dex. He set the glass on the bar, still a quarter full, and took a moment to adjust his body-length, beige trench coat. The barwoman looked up from the now dry glass she had been polishing. She noticed the hilt of a blade poking out the top of Dex’s coat. It looked oriental to her. Probably Japanese.

“Didn’t know samurai liked chocolate milk,” she said, traces of ancient Texas on her voice.
“It’s not mine,” replied Dex, keeping his eyes on his drink.
“So why have you got it?” asked the barwoman.
“Looking for someone,” said Dex.
“Who?”
“I ain’t gonna tell some nosy barmaid.,” snapped Dex, he paused, gave the woman a smile with slightest hint of sleaze. “But I might tell you in my bed.”
“You gotta work on your lines,” said the woman. “I’m colder than Europa over here.”
“I don’t want the trouble a woman brings anyway,” said Dex, tossing back the last of his milk.
“But you still want the woman,” said the barmaid. “Any woman whose clothes are tight and belt is loose, right?”
Dex looked up. The barwoman was practically sneering at him.
“No,” said Dex. “I only want one woman.”

With that, Dex got up from his stool and walked out of the bar. He stepped out on to the street. There was traffic everywhere. Pedestrians buzzed to and fro. It was pretty busy even for a backwater place like Iga City. It was not much of a city as more of a clump of bars and houses gathered around a stopover station for freight and passenger ships. Much like the railway towns of Earth. The ships that carried everything that needed to be carried only had so much fuel, so stopover stations were built every couple of thousands of kilometres. The ships were the only way to get from city to city on Jupiter. You either bought your own or paid your way. Few people owned a ship, even a small one, their cost proving prohibitive. Dex, however, owned his own ship. It was moderately sized with room for a crew of three or four. Dex looked into the sky, past the dome that kept Iga’s air in. A huge ship breezed by over head. Ganymede smiled down at it, its crescent appearing to wish the ship’s inhabitants a safe voyage. Dex sighed to himself. He would be up there shortly. Iga had revealed no clues. The next city might have more luck. He straightened his back and began making his way towards Iga City’s docking ports on the outskirts of the settlement. It was a fair distance away, but Dex chose to walk rather than pay the exorbitant prices of the local taxis. He enjoyed walking anyway. When you walk, your destination is wherever you like, how you get there is however you want to get there. You are in complete control. It was the same reason Dex had his own ship. He felt extremely lucky to even have it, Dex’s methods of acquiring it more luck than anything.

Dex stopped. Something out of the corner of his eye had caught his attention. He had stopped at the entrance of an alleyway that jutted off the street. He looked down its length. There were two figures, shapes in the shadows, close together. A man and a woman. Their movements were vigorous, deliberate. Were they making love? A quick and dirty rendezvous in an alley, two travellers or two lovers whose work brings them together so very fleetingly? It was not unheard of. A flash of reflected light changed Dex’s conclusion. Light glinted off something metal in the man’s hand. A knife or a gun, he could not be sure at this range. The woman was thrown to the ground. Dex sprang into action, his legs surging with urgent energy. They launched him down the alley, every step pushing off the ground harder and faster than the last. The man raised his weapon. He pointed it ast the woman. Dex could see it was a gun now. The woman pressed her back up against the wall in a sitting position, having scrambled up off the ground. Her eyes were devoid of tears. She simply closed them, a calm descending over her. Dex got ever nearer. He thought he heard her say ‘I’m sorry. About everything.’. It was as faint as a butterfly’s whisper but he heard it. Dex’s own voice tore through the air.
“Leave her alone!” he bellowed.
The man looked over in time to see Dex’s fist collide with his own nose. The man tumbled to the ground, a short spurt of blood erupting from his nostrils. As quick as he fell, he composed himself. Not enough to get up, but enough to raise his gun. He fired a shot. BAM! The shot was the signature of a marksman. It landed in Dex’s chest, precisely in his heart. A splatter of blood sprinkled the alley as expected. As definitely not expected, though, Dex did not die. He just smiled at the man before bringing the full force of his foot to the man’s jaw, knocking him out cold.

He turned to the woman. Dex extended his had. The woman looked him up and down, her eyes wide and jaw hanging open. The blood had long since been drained from her face, leaving a pale sheet of skin.
“You should be dead,” she breathed.
“You should be thankful,” replied Dex.
“Your heart,” she said. “You should’ve died.”
“I don’t have a heart,” said Dex. “Well, it’s not mine anyway. It’s artificial, titanium casing, bulletproof. Actually, it’s lucky the bastard shot me in the heart. Anywhere else and I could’ve been a goner.”
Dex extended a hand. The woman stared at him, still shocked by what she had just seen. Finally, she accepted his outstretched hand. Dex helped her to her feet.
“I’m Dex by the way,” he said, mockingly kissing the woman’s hand.
“Mia,” said the woman. “Mia Carina.”

“These aren’t safe alleyways for gorgeous women such as yourself,” said Dex.
“I can handle myself,” replied Mia.
“Not well enough apparently,” retorted Dex. “You live around here? Or passing through?”
“Passing through,” she said.
“Me too,” said Dex.
“Where you heading?”
“Why, you need a ride?”
“Something like that.”
“There are ships coming and going all the time.”
“I don’t exactly have any money.”
“What makes you think I’ll pay your way?”
“’Cause you’re a gentleman in the habit of helping out damsels in distress.”
“I have my own ship,” said Dex. “You could sleep in my quarters.”
Mia’s eyes narrowed. Her lips curled. Her face burned.
“Why, you sleazy, no good, scumbag,” fumed Mia.
“Hey, come on, Mia,” said Dex, a wry smile crossing his face. “I did save your life, don’t I deserve something in return?”
“I’m starting to think I was safer with Shooty McGee over there,” said Mia, anger still coursing through her.
“Fine, find your own way off this island,” said Dex.
He turned and walked back to the street. Mia folded her arms and burned her gaze into his back. Dex stopped as he got to the alley’s exit.
“Docking Port 72-A,” he called over his shoulder. “I have spare quarters. You would have full privacy.”
Dex stepped into the street and continued on his way. Mia stood in the alley, the shadows hiding the small smile on her face.

Dex sat in the chair on the right of the control centre. He tapped at the control panel in front of him. The sun was low and light stretched the shadows in Dex’s ship. A large glass window opened the control centre to the Jupiter skies. A long, leather couch stretched concavely along the breadth of the control centre, matching the curve of the large window. The lounge was set below the main level, two steps led up to the area where the working crew would sit. Its floor was level with the top of the lounge. Three seats with accompanying control panels filled out the main level, on the right, left and centre. Dex noticed a familiar face on the screen in front of him. He stood up and exited the rear of the control centre. He made his way through the main hall until he came upon a large, circular doorway on the left side of the ship. Dex pressed a button next to it and it shuddered open, splitting into separate sections and then retracting into the hull. Dex smiled as he saw Mia standing on the gantry outside.
“Mia Carina,” said Dex. “Welcome to the Darwin.”

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Signature by me.{The Six Year Sleep}{Stories From Jupiter}{Game Over}
{Southern Belle} {Fireball} {Knightlark} {Rhea}{Hylian Z}{Panique} {Azzy} {Holic}