Novella: Nova, Part 1
by Ted 2112, HSM team writer
Images by Olivia_Allin, HSM team photographer
It was simply called the Spot.
The small concrete room was located directly under Central City’s gleaming steel and glass shopping center called the Hub. The sixteen by twelve room was some kind of never-used storage room, located among an array of mechanical and hydraulic machinery that helped run the sky train running over the Hub. It was a simple space, with high ceilings supported by metal beams, and never designed to be seen by many people.
Sam found the Spot one day after following a utility staircase off a service corridor that ran along the back of the Mall. He was always doing things like that. An insomniac and restless spirit, Sam was always searching. Sometimes he wondered how he found the answers to whatever he was searching for when he didn’t even know the questions, but what else is new, when you are young and your whole life is seemingly ahead of you.
What did it mean to be an twenty something insomniac who worked at a trendy clothing store, Threads, located on the first floor of the Mall inside the Hub? For as long as he could remember, Sam had trouble sleeping at night, but lately it was taking over his life. He often looked for crash pads he could use for a quick nap by day. He would set the timer on his phone to 45 minutes. That way, he would wake up before he went into REM, and had one of his horrific dreams that kept him in his perpetual tired state.
Sam had shaggy brown hair, tall, and had found high school easy so never pushed himself. That was all well behind him now. He graduated near the top of his class, but didn’t end up going to college. It was an easy decision, because he didn’t have the money or the desire to go. Sam’s family was pure working class. His dad worked aboard the mega airship GoliathusRFD7 and was seldom home, and his mother was a chambermaid at the Infinity Towers downtown. Both agreed that taking time off from school could be just as educating as going to college. The time slipped by, and four years later he still had no desire to go off to college. His parents seemed to be satisfied with him working full-time, and and gave him the room to make up his own mind about his future.
Sam, along with his friends, Tac, Pence, and Seiphie, were all in the same boat: no money, and no motivation. They came together mostly by default. Most of their friends went off to college. They were different; they shunned the traditional road most kids were supposed to take, and saw themselves in each other. The group took to hanging out in the underground room and called themselves The Misfits. The mark of The Misfits were the words, “The End is Near,” which they spray-painted on walls and tagged anything they could. Most people took the words to be a reference to the approaching comet. Frehley’s Comet was a once-in-a-thousand-year event that had the city celebrating. Many comet festivals were planned for later in the summer to commemorate its close passing. When the Misfits moved into the Spot, they sprayed-painted those words on the wall, although they couldn’t explain why they choose this motto. Maybe it was the comet. Somehow, they felt it was appropriate.
Tac was the oldest of the Misfits at 22. He was a superb athlete well as a black belt in Aikido; he was one of the reasons why no one bothered them. Tac considered himself a Buddhist, although he was always scamming for ways to make some extra money. His typical outfit was a gray bucket hat over his long blond hair and long sideburns. Pence, on the other hand, was the brains of the operation. At 20, he dropped out of technical college, where he learned how to write code. For the last year, he turned his skills into money selling “enhanced” software that could do anything from build web sites to hijack another computer. Pence was his nickname, a variant of Pramod, his given Hindi name. He was a little overweight but had a sunny disposition, and quickness to laugh that kept the others in stitches. Pence usually wore a backpack that had a tangled mess of electronics inside. His dark skin and hair really accented his white teeth when he smiled. Seiphie, also 21, was the compass of the group; she kept them going. Without her, they would have no direction. Most of what The Misfits did was her idea. Seiphie kept them cool, not a group of losers. She was a guarded, jet black haired beauty from multiple foster homes. The Misfits were the closet thing she had to a real family.
Over the months since they discovered the Spot, they worked hard to decorate it. A couch and a few chairs they found on the side of the road found new life there. A borrowed 2EN6 table from the Threads break room, as well as high speed internet connection, spliced off the Hub’s circuit completed its design. The room stayed mostly empty until after five, when the Misfits would hold court. Usually Pence and Seiphie were there almost every night. Tac was there on the nights he didn’t have a Aikido workout, and Sam had a floating work schedule that involved some nights, but would still pop in during his breaks if he was working. The Hub was open 24 hours a day, so they could come and go as they pleased. Most nights they hung out and drank beer, if they could find the money. The other times they would hang out in the Hub or go down to Pier Park.
The rest of the Misfits understood Sam’s insomnia. It was just a part of who he was. They even got into the habit of tactfully waking him up in forty-five minutes if he happened to doze off. They didn’t always do that at first, but when he would wake up from his bad dreams, he would be a wreck for the rest of the day. The friends were just like that. Seiphie didn’t have a job and was always broke, so the rest paid for her when they did things. They didn’t make anything out of it; they just paid, and it was just the way things were. In the Spot they were in charge. It was theirs. They considered themselves lucky. The time spent outside in the real world doing real world things didn’t matter. The time they had being together in this borrowed place is what they really considered real. The world moved to its own rhythm, and they moved to theirs.
The only big plans the Misfits had that week were to get to the Sodium Races on the weekend. The races were awesome in themselves, but the real action was the betting that went on trackside. Tac had a friend he worked out with on one of the racers’ crew, and had inside information that he was planning on using to make some money. The whole crew had plans on throwing a “The End is Near” party at the end of the summer, and Seiphe figured they needed about 300 credits to pull it off. They hoped the party would be the group’s end of the beginning and the start of the whatever. They had no plans come fall; no college, no prospective jobs, nothing. They wanted to enjoy the summer then throw a party, and deal with whatever came after. Until then, they lived in the moment, and the end of summer seemed very far off.
∞
It was the lady again. Sam wasn’t sure if she floated or not. She was naked and in some kind of water. Stars shined behind her. Her mouth moved, but the words were hard to understand, like they were coming from very far away place.
When Sam saw her, he remembered.
He remembered he’d seen her many times, each time knowing her well, yet somehow forgotten. He remembered the recurring dream and that he would wake up soon. He tried to move closer, but his feet moved like they were in cement. Sam called out to her, his words he could hear in his mind, but the sound never came out.
“Who are you?” Sam strained to ask, and felt like the words just bounced around the steel room, a kind of space station, dark and full of water.
“Who are you?” He tried to scream to the lady.
“Sam,” the lady called out to him, extending a wet arm to him, “the end is near.”
“Sam wake up,” Seiphie shook him. “You dozed off again.”
Sam opened his eyes. He was in the Spot and could hear the machinery whirl through the walls as the train passed overhead. He was in a cold sweat.
“You were yelling,” Seiphie said, and then after a moment added, “…that dream again?”
“Yeah I think so,” replied Sam as he looked around the room and tried to get his bearings.
“The floating space lady?” Seiphie asked
“Yeah” Sam added simply.
Seiphie walked over to the wall where she drew a hash mark with a marker. “That’s number twenty one,” she said as she added the mark. The marks started as a joke, but quickly became very serious when they began adding up. Sam looked at the wall with lines in groups of five. Over the marks were the words: Floating Space Lady. Sam counted the lines and thought he must be going crazy.
“I need a new brain,” Sam said.
“No, you need this,” said Seiphie, as she got Sam and herself a small neon green metal bottle of BNN9RZR, a potent energy drink that they all drank like fish. Sam twisted off the metal cap and drank the warm, bitter liquid.
“The end is near,” Sam muttered blearily to no one in particular.
“Damn right,” agreed Seiphie. “Cheers.”
June 23rd, 2012 by ted2112 | 4 comments
ted2112 is a writer and a Bass player that has been both inspired and takes to heart Kurt Vonnegut words...."we are here on planet Earth to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different."
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Very nice Ted! I love what you have done with this and look forward to the next installment! What a “novel” idea!
Great read Ted. This story sounds like it’s going to be awesome and I can’t wait to read the next part. I can’t wait to find out more about the Floating Space Lady and Sam’s dreams and what it all means. As Burbie said, “What a ‘novel’ idea!”
Off the top of my head, I can’t recall any Home media experimenting with running a novella before. Ted, this is a great read, and I think the audience is going to thoroughly enjoy the subsequent chapters that will be released over the coming days. Thanks for writing this, and allowing HSM to share it!
Forgot to add besides the novella being a great idea, I think Olivia_Allins graphics are amazing and they capture the story. I really can’t wait to read more of this.