I woke up to something wet hitting me in the face. Lifting a hand to shield my eyes I opened them to find it was still night, but now it was raining. Getting to a sitting position, I passed my hand to the back of my pounding head where it came away red and sticky.

  People walked around me as if I was an inanimate object to be ignored. I got up shakily to my feet and wrapped my arms around myself as a shiver swept through me. Looking down I found out why.

  Shoes gone.

  Jacket missing.

  Wallet nowhere to be found.

  John had cleaned me out. I shook my head and looked down at my computer still attached to my forearm. No doubt he would have taken that too if they weren’t all DNA coded so only the owner could use them. I checked the time and found less than an hour had passed.

  Head down, feet squelching against the damp leaves that stuck to them, I made my way home.

  * * *

  The rain hadn’t let up but only increased as my house came into view. Bought when Claire and I didn’t have much money, it was a standard three-bed house slotted in suburbia.

  I walked past similar houses with better paint jobs, nicer lights, and the latest robotic gardeners who tended to every detail of their homeowner’s lawn. Then I stopped in front of our house and looked up.

  Most of the lights on the front of our porch were out; a few flickered like dying stars, but they only highlighted the fading paint job and the overgrown weeds that needed to be cut. I walked forward and cussed as I stubbed my toe on cutting shears left across the pathway. Picking them up I threw them to one side.

  I had asked my sons to do the gardening, but one quick look at the state of the grass and weeds surrounding me told me they hadn’t even bothered to start.

  Shaking my head, I opened the front door to find it was unlocked and walked on through. The eerie glow from chargers and electronics on standby gave me enough room to manoeuvre without knocking anything over, taking the stairs two at a time; I walked past my sons’ room to see the tell tale glow of a screen still on; opening the door I was greeted by both my sons sat in front of the TV watching something animated and gruesome.

  Blood splattered the screen, capturing their attention.

  “Sun, Rise, what are you two doing up?”

  Sun was my older and Rise my younger. Sun, Rise. Two idiotic names my wife had chosen because names associated with nature were the “in” thing at the time. I had suggested something a little less out there, but by the time I had come back from picking up diapers, she had already registered the names.

  They were twelve and ten. I sometimes wondered if they were mine.

  “Boys, I asked you a question!”

  “For fuck’s sake, Quinton. Can’t you see we’re watching something?” Sun said, pointing to the screen.

  “Don’t—”

  “Why don’t you go bother Claire—can’t you see we’re doing shit?” Rise said.

  “How many times have I told you boys its Mum and Dad?”

  “Well, ‘Mum’,” Sun said with air quotes, “says labels hold you back from your true destiny. The government imposes labels on us to hold us back.”

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I rolled my eyes and held back my response; I was too tired for this shit. My head felt like it was splitting in two and my feet were killing me.

  I closed the door without saying another word.

  “Limp dick asshole,” I heard one of them say through the door.

  I made my way to the bathroom and washed as quickly as I could. As the blood swirled down the drain I tried to muster up some kind of anger, some sort of rage, but all I felt was hollow inside. After washing myself off I walked into my bedroom to find it cold and empty.

  The bed was still unslept in.

  The clothes I had washed and folded were still resting at the bottom of the bed.

  Throwing the covers back I got into bed and rechecked my computer, to see if I had any missed calls or messages but I had missed none.

  I thought about calling Claire, to see where she was but this wasn’t the first time she had stayed out late with her friends, nor would it be the last, and it would only cause an argument if she picked up—one I didn’t think my head could take.

  Shutting my eyes once more I drifted off till my computer buzzed on my arm signalling a message. I opened it with blurry eyes and groaned when I read what it said.

  Quinton,

  Gregory. I know I said I needed you to fly out in two days but something came up in head office, so I’m afraid I’ll need you to fly out first thing in the morning. I know it’s short notice but we’ve all got to do our best to keep this beast afloat.

  Get your shit packed and ready for the morning.

  I closed the computer and lay back down uttering the thousandth sigh of the day and closed my eyes.

  * * *

  The alarm woke me up all too early. I dragged myself out of bed, feeling like a sack of shit.

  Water. Packed. Dressed.

  And I was out the door before the sun had even risen. I didn’t have to get the boys ready for school because they were off for the summer, but I still wanted to get in touch with Claire and let her know I wouldn’t be around for the next few days. Plus she would need to get in before the boys woke up, so there was someone there to look after them.

  I tried ringing her but didn’t have much luck. At the nearest transport tube I paid the fee for the journey to the space station and settled in my one-person see-through pod. They came in varying sizes depending on use, but they all had the same interior.

  Clean and temperature-controlled with glass all around, they were one of the few ways to travel through the city.

  The use of cars had been outlawed in all major cities hundreds of years ago, with only the rich and famous having enough money to afford them, or keep them running. They used them on the roads outside the city which had once been teeming with metal life, roads that had cars bumper to bumper; now the only thing that travelled on them were electric public transport vehicles and the occasional rich asshole who used the roads as his personal track.

  I tried to settle my head back on the headrest of the chair but the bump that had grown at the back of it, from last night’s beating, made me wince and lift my head back up.

  A buzzing on my forearm made me look at my computer, Claire’s name flashed across the screen forcing me to take a slow intake of breath.

  Calm. Calm. Calm.

  That was what I reminded myself as I swiped the screen to receive the call. Claire’s makeup-smudged face with heavily laden eyes greeted me.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Hi, I didn’t see you—”

  “I was out with the girls. I told you this more than once this week that I will be spending some time with my friends. If you listened more then you would have known that.”

  “Are you—”

  “Yes, I’m sure! God, sometimes it’s like speaking to a brick wall with you.”

  I took another deep breath and said, “I’m sorry, I must have misheard. I know this is last minute and I’m sorry to do this to you, but I have to go off-world for a work meeting for the next couple of days. I’m on my way to the space station now, so the boys will need looking after.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Quinton! I had plans for the next few days. You know what tomorrow is, right?”

  “Your birthday,” I mumbled.

  “Yeah, my birthday, and I had plans with friends. Now I have to blow that out of the water to look after your kids, the same kids you’re never around to spend any time with. They hardly know who their father is with the amount of time you spend in your office. If I didn’t know better, I would say you’re sleeping with your secretary, but just thinking about that makes me laugh, it’s so unlikely.”

  I gritted my teeth and took two more deep breaths. There had been offers. There had been longing looks and too-long touches on the shoulder, but I had halted them all for the same family who thought so little of me.

  “Honey, we’ve been through this. If I keep putting in the hours then the promotion is mine, plus some of the bills are late and with you not working at the moment—”

  “So this is my fault, is it?” she asked, eyes flashing in anger.

  “Of course not, I know the stress of work makes your anxiety flare up and I would never put that mental strain on you. Can you just make sure everything is looked after while I’m away?”

  Silence on the other end while she looked at me with a layer of disgust she barely concealed.

  “Whatever,” and with that, the line went dead leaving me staring at a blank screen.