Chapter 1

The Far Off Future

Johnny Millenium had always dreamt of seeing the outside world. It was on this particular artificial night in Zenron, Johnny was dreaming of stars. What they looked like, how big they were, if he could touch them. These types of things often ran through his head. On top of the roof of “Diablo’s”; a nightclub Johnny ran but did not own, was a hammock strung up between a pair of rusty metal bars holding up the neon sign to the club. Johnny layed there, gazing at the smog covered projection of night, squinting from the brightness of the neon signs.

As he began to doze off to the steady whirr of night traffic he was suddenly alarmed by a loud sound from the streets below. Johnny jumped up and looked down into the fog covered avenue where several gang members had parked their hover bikes and had tipped over an old broken down hover car.

“Nah, he ain’t out here.”

“This is the place right?”

“Please don’t let this be the place,” Johnny thought to himself. A biker removed his horned helmet and flipped aside his dirty blonde mopped hair to look up to where Johnny was to read the neon sign on the building. As he looked up Johnny recognized the face as his old friend, Creedence Clearwater.

“This is the place,” Creedence said, with a smirk.

“Let’s go in then!” Five or six gang members swiftly entered the bar. Johnny sighed and flipped open the door inside and ran down a flight of stairs straight to his office. He put on the white jacket sitting on his chair and threw open his office desk drawer consisting of a small necklace with a spiral wooden charm, a bottle of tequila, and a picture of him, his deceased parents, and his brother. After taking a swig of tequila he put on the necklace and ran downstairs into the bar.

At the end of a long bar, Daisy Stickers stood diligently filling drink orders for two off duty Zenronian guardsmen as well as a collapsed customer at the bar in front of the intense, flickering lights of the dance floor. As she turned around to grab some glasses a guard slid an electric baton between a gap in her black denim jeans and gave her a zap. She bolted straight up as her long black hair ending a shade lighter than it began on her head turned into a messy frizz. Without a word she threw a hard right at the guard who fell over immediately, dropping the baton. His friend went over to him and tried to wake him up.

“What’s the matter, we were just having fun!” The guard complained.

“So was I. We were just playing a game I call punch the perv, you wanna be next?” Without another word the guard picked up his buddy and ran out past the dancefloor. Johnny watched this unfold somewhat bemused at the exchange and then trepidatiously walked up to Daisy.

“Daisy I hate sexual harassment as much as the next person but we can’t just drive away paying customers,” Johnny said. Johnny and Daisy had a long developed relationship of reciprocal detachment from each other or at least that’s what they were okay with reminding themselves when they fell asleep alone every night.

“Johnny. I thought you were still on vacation,” Daisy joked with him, as she shook a cocktail. It was true that Johnny was known to not take his work very seriously. One could almost tell from his attire; an ocean colored Hawaiian t-shirt with happy green trees and suspCreedence, that this was a man who didn’t give the most consideration to his job.

“I could never. Especially not with a gorgeous babe like you working here,” Johnny was flirting but couldn’t help looking around the dance floor for the gang members. The aluminum foil wallpaper was reflecting the lighting of the dancefloor but also packing in all the heat of the room. It made things hazy. Everyone who went to “Diablo’s” looked dangerous. Wealthy men from the inner city who artificially altered their height among other things coming here thinking they won’t be recognized. Teenage gangsters; bored and drunk. Leather dancers with spiked heads swinging from cages chained to the ceiling. Twentysomethings licking their hard candy underwear off like lollipops, and dancing on the rotating double decker dance floor to the Acid New Wave Hypno House.

“What is the matter with you?” Daisy asked. A buck toothed man in a suit with a surgically implanted second nose for enhanced sniffing walked up to the bar.

“I think I saw some bad hombres up on the roof,” Johnny said, looking around warily, but struggling to see beyond the blinding lights.

“I asked for olives in my martini and you only gave me two! I wanna a new one for free!” The buck toothed man interrupted, throwing the drink in her face.

“Yes sir” Daisy said, resigned to her fate. Johnny stepped up into his role as the boss.

“You know sir. There are lots of bars in Zenron,” Johnny said, trying to politely show him the door. The little suit was worked up now, he was practically turning red working up this speech he had practiced yelling at one hundred other bartCreedence.

“Another bar?! Do you know who I am?! I work for the Zenron national bank! I can buy and sell everyone here!”

“Then buy your own bar,” Johnny couldn’t help but reply in an annoyed tone.

“There he is! Guys!” Over a crowd of people on the dance floor he saw the bikers from before. Johnny’s heart sank as he was identified. He turned to Daisy and took a swig from the drink in her hand.

“I’ll draw them out of here, you're in charge of the bar!” Johnny exclaimed before tossing the little banker over to distract one of the bikers who swiftly knocked him over the head with a stun baton.

Suddenly the music stopped as one of them started smashing all of DJ Jepp’s

equipment. DJ Jepp was the regular DJ at “Diablo’s”, his true identity was hidden to everyone except those closest to him. Though he kept on a gold “Phantom of the Opera” mask to conceal his identity he rarely wore a shirt, which showed off his impeccably crafted physique and rich, flawless, chocolate colored skin. DJ Jepp’s purple cape flew back in the wind as he rose to protest the bikers.

“No way man, that’s vintage!” He begged.

“Should have thought of that before you brought your music gear to a dance club!” The bald forty year old biker with braces barked back.

“You’ll live to regret this, or my name isn’t DJ Jepp!” DJ Jepp proclaimed. It in fact wasn’t his name.

Meanwhile outside the bar, Johnny had run up to a row of hover bikes left outside the bar. They had all been customized to various degrees; some were bejeweled and carefully shined, others were covered in sharp spikes, clearly made for battle. Johnny ran to the closest bike, a relatively simple design of a skull, that seemed easy to control and fast. It had been years since he piloted one, but old habits die hard. After some shaky hot wiring he had gotten the wires to start up the blades. The chopper blades on both ends of the bike quickly began to pick up speed and cut away the air beneath him. As his feet lifted off the ground he had them reach the pedals in front of the steel caging blocking the rotating back blades and flipped on the twin jet engines. Just as a gang member had bursted out of the nightclub, Johnny was blasting down the street.

He headed toward the speedway to lose them in the crowd of hovercrafts. When he had turned a corner he could already see their blinding headlights in his rearview mirror though. He stepped on the gas, flying past millions of neon city lights whizzing past him like fireflies. Cutting through an alley, he narrowly avoided a burning pile of garbage which one gang member wasn’t as lucky to avoid. He could hear their bikes getting closer. He was almost at the intersection when a tiny ball hit the broken gravel ahead of him. As he swerved from the surprise an explosion erupted from the ball and the hoverbike bucked away from the impact. Several more grenades dropped after the initial explosion but before they had time to explode, Johnny took a tight turn onto a sidewalk, barely avoiding the blast.

Johnny looked behind him. Maybe he got lucky and they killed themselves. He entered a long tunnel. All Johnny heard was the hum of his own jet engines echoing through the narrow passageway. There was nothing in his mirror anymore. When he turned his attention to the road he took notice of a small object at the end of the tunnel coming towards him. A bike. Johnny looked back toward the exit where several more bikes had just entered.

Johnny’s hair blew in the breeze as he turned up the acceleration. In an instant the two bikes flew past each other but Johnny was able to catch a glance for just a moment of the eyes of Creedence Clearwater. Just as he passed the incoming hoverbike he noticed that another grenade had been left on the ground in front of him. Johnny tried pulling up from it as best he could but it was too late. The grenade exploded and while his bike took most of the impact of the blast, Johnny was still flipped off the bike. He rolled along the pavement putting out the fire of the explosion, damaging almost every part of himself in the process, and then turned his back to the falling vehicle just before it exploded in a fiery eruption.

Johnny rolled away from the fire and laid down beside the wreckage. Three hover bikes pulled up beside the burning rubble. The bikers gathered around him, blocking all routes of escape. As Johnny woke from the aftermath of the explosion it was as if he had been transported into Hell complete with fire and devils that wore curly horned biker helmets.

The only familiar person, Creedence Clearwater, pulled Johnny away from the fire and pushed him into the road. Johnny weezed and rubbed his eyes from the stinging smoke as the men took off their helmets. Beside Creedence was the short, fat, bald man with braces. On his other side was a lean man with piercings all over the place. The final one had used the stun baton on the little banker. He was the biggest one there and was extremely muscular but seemed to stay silent most of the time and just stare off into space.

“You even know why we’re chasing you, Johnny?” Creedence asked.

“It can’t be good,” Johnny coughed out.

“You shut up and listen, you good for nothing bar rat!” The bald man with braces and a bad temper yelled at Johnny, “We should just kill him” He added in at the end.

“I really should but I’ve taken too much of a loss to not get paid anything. I know he’s hiding some bank,” Creedence said, smirking.

“Your brother is Eddy right?” The gang member with piercings all over the place asked while laughing.

“Eddy? Look, I haven’t spoken with my brother in months,” Johnny answered.

“Neither has anyone. Pretty convenient seeing as he stole one hundred and fifty thousand credits from Mr. Riddle,” Creedence said.

“Mr. Riddle? Don’t tell me you take orders from him too now? Here I thought you were a big tough gangster who made a living all on his own no matter what it took or who he had to hurt. Why are you harassing me if we work for the same guy?” Johnny said, teasing Creedence.

“Mr. Riddle shouldn’t have to do this kind of dirty work if he doesn’t want to, and at least I earn my money unlike that filthy gutter slime brother of yours!” Creedence said.

“I’d say we’re rather similar to business liaisons as it were,” The silent and tall biker said in a very fancy voice without looking at anyone in particular.

“Yeah, look pal, Mr. Riddle is a very generous gentleman. But if he doesn’t get his money back, that’s when we have a problem, we gotta take action at some point” The bald biker said.

“Yeah we might even need to sell your organs on the black market” The pierced biker said, licking his lips like a hyena.

“So I guess that’s your conundrum now, Johnny. Do you have one hundred and fifty thousand credits in cash or do we have to harvest your organs?” Johnny considered their words carefully. They had made his decision pretty easy though.

“Take me to an ATM”

Johnny got in the backseat of Creedence Clearwater’s hover bike and took off with them, floating down the empty streets. As Johnny looked back, he saw the mass of twisted gears and dying flames and hoped to God he would never have to drive a hoverbike again.

“What was Eddy thinking, getting involved with these people?” Was all Johnny could think as they flew down the empty street. Eddy always had problems keeping his nose clean. Johnny recalled a time when he had offered Eddy a job at “Diablo’s” but Eddy said he preferred to sell broken down hover crafts for parts. That was until he had gotten beat up by a gang member for stealing a craft that was his.

Before Johnny knew it they had arrived at a small glass booth on a corner beneath a flickering street lamp. It had at least given Johnny time to think over the situation. Would his own boss really effectively steal his own life savings from him? Of course he had never actually met Diablo Riddle, he’d only ever communicated by sending checks and reports and talking to secretaries. Still Johnny couldn’t help but curse Eddy for this predicament.

Creedence pushed Johnny to the ground and kicked him over to the booth nonchalantly. Johnny picked himself up off the crumbling sidewalk and opened up the booth.

“I already told you I was paying,” Johnny said, holding his bruised ribs.

“That’s for stealing a bike and making this difficult,” Creedence said, putting a toothpick in his mouth. Johnny punched in his identification code into the air screen before displaying his eye for the retinal scan. It processed for a moment and then verified him.

“Welcome Johnny Millenium, would you like to deposit, or withdraw?” The computer voice asked, displaying a projection of a professional bank lady. One hundred and fifty thousand credits was all Johnny had. The majority of it was an inheritance along with the bar from his father and suffice to say an entire lifetime of tending bar, cleaning up dancefloors, and cow towing to inner city royalty like Diablo Riddle was not an easy thing for Johnny to give up.

“Withdrawal” Johnny Millenium said. The bank lady stared at Johnny with a stupid blank smile on her face.

“I didn’t quite get that,” The bank lady said.

“Withdrawal,” Johnny shouted. The lady still didn’t change.

“I didn’t quite get that,” She said back to him.

“Withdrawal,” Johnny shouted along with the entire gang.

“I see, how much would you like to withdraw?” The bank lady asked.

“One hundred and fifty thousand credits in cash,” Johnny said, wincing.

“Very well, thank you for banking with Zenron bank,” The bank lady said signing off. From the atm below her hundreds of plastic cards started falling out of the little slot in the center. The gang started helping themselves to the loot and laughing at Johnny in the process.

“That’ll teach you to have a brother that messes with us,” The bald man said, proudly pocketing his money. Just before they all left Creedence took one final look at Johnny.

“Hoo Boy! What a trip, seeing you was just like the good old days.”

“Yeah, remember the days when I used to kick your butt and save you from pissing off the wrong people. I guess none of it got through to you” Johnny said, with hatred in his eyes.

“Well at least I remember how to ride a hoverbike. Ha, and they say you never forget!” Creedence mocked, before shutting the booth on Johnny. Johnny slid down the side of the booth to the floor. He was alone but the question remained, where had Eddy gone, and why would he not go to Johnny if he was in trouble? Something wasn’t adding up. Though the last thing Johnny wanted was to have to reunite with Eddy, he felt adventure calling in his heart. Johnny Millenium was determined to know what happened.