"I know Odie, and you're a good father to her."
"Yeah, shit."
"Just tell me what happened."
Oddam let out an exasperated breath. "Well, I were supposed to leave for the weekend. You know, my brother's havin’ surgery, that there lap-belt. But, I heard the boy was here tryin’ ta load my baby girl up with a baby of her own."
Oddam continued, "I came straight back to catch that boy runnin’ out the back, full sprint to the woods. I chased him out and fired a couple warning shots in the air. I swear, Scrant, last time I seen him, he was on his feet."
Chapter 3: Kelly and Mika
"A cloud in space is very similar to a cloud here on Earth," the woman on TV explained. "Debris, perhaps from a galactic collision, or leftovers from an exploding star, now just floating around in space. Only, in space, it is gravity that pulls that cloud together."
The woman continued her explanation: "When there is no other gravitational influence from a nearby celestial entity, the small amounts of mass in each object will act upon one another. This will cause the matter to cluster, to come together in a quintessential cloud."
Kelly switched off the TV. "There's more to it, Mika. What they aren't telling you is that this cloud is rare. Really rare."
"Typically, these clouds are a byproduct of astronomical phenomena. There is stuff around; there is chaos." She looked at Mika and continued, "Stuff running into each other in space." Mika just smiled her usual grin, making Kelly's eyes light up.
"This cloud is too neat, and it’s the only thing around for thousands of lightyears." Being a self-taught student of astronomy, Kelly was confident she could explain this to Mika.
"You see Mika, most asteroids that you hear about actually come from our own solar system," she ended with a smile and raised brows.
"Reeaally?" Mika was both fascinated and horrified.
"Oh yeah," Kelly illustrated, drawing a dot on a piece of paper. She then made the circle bigger by scribbling it in.
"Here is the sun, and around that you have Mercury." A circle and another dot. "Mercury is the planet closest to the sun. It only takes eighty-eight days to go around the sun, so they have short years." Kelly threw up a finger. "But, did you know that it spins so slowly," Kelly moved her hands in slow-motion, "that there are only two days a year?"
Mika mouthed the word "wow," and her eyes sparkled. "Is Mercury the hottest planet? If it's closest to the sun, that has to be hot."
"Oh, it is, Mika." She put her hands on her lap. "Its average temperature is hot enough to bake a cake. You could open a bakery, save a fortune on electricity," she said matter of factly.
"No way! How would your customers get their bread?" Mika asked.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe we can have delivery," Kelly continued her charade.
"All the way to Earth? Don't be silly, Auntie Kelly."
Kelly laughed at the unconvinced look on Mika's face.
"No, Mercury is hot, really hot, but only during the day. At night, it's colder than aaannny place on Earth. Brrr," she feigned shivering.
"You would need a super puffy coat for that, huh Auntie Kelly?"
Maybe a sweater, too," Kelly said as she gave a little poke to Mika, "otherwise you'll catch a cold."
"But the hottest planet is actually Venus." Kelly drew a dot and another circle, more prominent than the first and encompassing the original dot. Venus is a lot like Earth. It's about the same size, made of similar stuff, and not that much closer to the Sun than we are."
"However," she pointed to Mika, "the atmosphere is so thick, it would be like swimming in the deepest part of the ocean."
Mika was cautious after the first rouse. "For real, Auntie?"
Kelly laughed. "Pinky promise. Not to mention, it's made up of highly acidic carbon dioxide, the stuff you breathe out; it's poisonous to us."
"What? How can it be poisonous to me, if I breathe it out? What about when I'm sleeping, and I don't move my head?"
Kelly laughed. She hadn't realized how literal her niece would take it.
"Don't worry, Sweet Pea; you only breathe out a tiny amount." Kelly motioned into the air with her hands. "As soon as you do, it's mixed in with the rest of the air."
"There has to be a lot of it in a small area for it to be poisonous," Kelly explained. "There is no chance it could happen while you're sleeping, Jelly Bean."
"Okay, Auntie," Mika said.
Kelly had inherited Mika from her sister, Kara, a "victim of society" as some would call her. Tale as old as time: girl meets guy. Girl falls in love. Guy gets girl hooked on para (pronounced pär-uh), the newest rendition of amphetamine.
Para is cheap to make, abundant, and highly addictive. The cheaper stuff, Scratch, is so aptly named because it causes excessive scratching.
The condition is earmarked with reddening of the skin, evident on almost any visible surface. More severe cases become littered with scabs and are incredibly frail. Their spirits become broken.
These cases are pretty common in prostitution rings. Young girl/guy goes for a weekend in the "forbidden dark," where anything can happen. A weekend of partying and experimenting has set the hook.
It only takes a few days of consistent use for the body to adapt, to need the new chemical. "Hey, just stay an extra day. You can miss a day of school. Meet Spud, he has some para for us, if you let him watch us have sex. Just join in in a little. "
"Don't worry. We love each other, so it won't make a difference, right? I'll go first."
"This is J. If you have sex with him, he can get us a bunch of para. Just pretend it's me, baby. If you love me, you'll do this for us. You already had sex with Spud."
Finally, "You can't leave. I'll tell your parents you're a whore, and you slept with disgusting guys for drugs! I'll tell everyone."
Before long they are broken, hollow shells of people to be used as quintessential puppets. The drugs may change, as may the location and method of business. But the paradigm remains the same.
They had these problems in the 20th century, back when they were first exploring the chemical compounds that we collectively refer to as "drugs."
It doesn't matter the sex, only the person. In nature, the weak get taken advantage. You would like to think in our progressive society that the strong would stand for the vulnerable.
The truth is a sad reality; our society may be more progressive than those who came before us. We have relative rights and advantages for everyone.
But in a world with 9.6 billion people, a lot goes unchecked. There are plenty of cracks for people to slip through, and a lot of people living down there.
There are still many "dark" places left on the planet, scattered intermittently throughout. These dark areas are typically run by the prevailing Warlords, Tyrants, or Crime group.
The Dark areas, simply called the Dark, are areas of chaos and lawlessness. The Dark consumes people like a commodity, a common commodity. Young teens are leached away from traditional society to be used up and tossed away by the worst among us.
Sometimes they have a baby. Sometimes they show up on your doorstep, rain pouring down with that baby and tears in her. Such was the case with her sister Kara.
"Kelly, it's too late for me. If they knew I was here, they would kill me. They want the child. You have to take her. Take her and protect her. You have to do this, Kelly; if they get to her, they will sell her." Never having witnessed Kara so desperate, Kelly