Resolute Uprising (The War for Terra) by James Prosser

Author:James Prosser [Prosser, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-12-05T07:00:00+00:00

15

Five Years Ago

Earth - Los Angeles

Stepping into the late day sun, Alvin Bennett wiped sweat from his broad forehead. His skin reddened under the California sun but he was used to it. The construction site behind him was a noisy mess of dust and shouting voices. He felt the damage his occupation placed on joints. He was too old to be a construction worker.

He walked down the short ramp from the site to street. Even this short trip seemed to make him out of breath. Alvin thought of the years he spent with his first wife and daughter. In those days, he worked for one of the largest legal firms in the state. He was more alive than at any time in his life. That was when the Almighty begins to take things away from Alvin. When Dana grew sick, he gave up the practice to take care of her. After she died, was left with no career and a daughter who blamed him for her mother’s death.

Chemical dependency took everything else from him as he tried to salve the wounds of Dana’s loss. Alice was taken by the authorities and no legal firm would even look his way. He struck bottom when even the mighty Confederation Medical Services refused to treat his addiction anymore. They declared him incurable and had him committed to a permanent facility in Alameda. It would be years that he would never be able to replace. By the time he came out of the drugged stupor, he lost track of his daughter and found himself back at zero.

He finally moved out of the care facility and into a half-way house in Hollywood. Finding that his legal credentials had long since become useless, he tried his hand at construction. The work was grueling for a man approaching late middle age, but it allowed him time to reflect on his life. He married once more while in rehab but it had not been successful. Alvin finally worked up the nerve to try to track down his daughter. A message bar on his wrist com told him that the service he hired to track Alice reported news. He decided to wait until arriving home before opening the message. His heart had already started beating hard as he walked to the nearest transit hub.

The hub covered nearly a half kilometer in downtown Los Angeles. It had been built over the remains of an old metro rail center fallen out of use after the development of skimmers. When the city banned private vehicles in the city, the transit hub was created. Small cars floated on magnetic tracks along tubular highways that stretched across the enormous city complex. Alvin’s stop took him nearly ten minutes during higher traffic days but the delay was acceptable. He considered walking to the hub stop a few kilometers further away to walk off the added pounds he gained after his release. In the end, the pain in his knees talked him out of the exercise.

Alvin waited in line to board a transit car.

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