Memories of Lagonda

Tom Jacomb

Description

On a distant planet, a 'wealth' had been found and wealth seekers poured in from every part of the galaxy. But the planet of Lagonda, after stumbling through childbirth and careering into adulthood in the space of 25 years, is in its dying throws, and there is nothing left but the millions of Yams trying to leave. Gregory Watts Johnson is one of these Yams. He'd gambled everything on two years of work to accomplish his dream but lost more than he could have ever imagined. Now, with a second chance, perhaps he might succeed.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 30 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528956239
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Memories of Lagonda
Tom Jacomb
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-04-30
Memories of Lagonda About The Author About The Book Copyright Information © Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
About The Author
As a boy of 12 years of age, Tom Jacomb worked part time on a farm, continuing full employment with the same after he left school. At the age of 20, he was a steel-erector, from which he eventually became self-employed, moving into the building trade at 25 until present day, working in stone.
Beginning his writing career some 40 years ago, he chose science fiction, joining a local writers’ club, progressing onto children’s books and fantasy. Married, with two boys, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, his hobbies include writing, teaching judo and motor scooters.
About The Book
On a distant planet, a ‘wealth’ had been found and wealth seekers poured in from every part of the galaxy. But the planet of Lagonda, after stumbling through childbirth and careering into adulthood in the space of 25 years, is in its dying throws, and there is nothing left but the millions of Yams trying to leave. Gregory Watts Johnson is one of these Yams. He’d gambled everything on two years of work to accomplish his dream but lost more than he could have ever imagined. Now, with a second chance, perhaps he might succeed.
Copyright Information ©
Tom Jacomb (2019)
The right of Tom Jacomb to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528956239 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Chapter 1
Rooted to the spot, Gregory Watts Johnson the third knew they could still find his silhouette in the deteriorated recessed corners of the dark building. Here, where only rats and shadows lived, night-find field glasses would seek him out, separate his shadowy form from that of other shadows and hone in on him. Catch his breath, though he hardly breathed. Search out the rhythmic pumping of his heart as it accelerated the blood around his body so fast, it made him nauseous. Catch him thinking that maybe this time he might be safe. But the truth of it was, he knew different, and every Yam on every street in every city knew it too.
Things were never different, they were always the same and life… life was a bitch, and tomorrow, if you lived through today, you would have to do it all over again.
Around him, in the dark stink hole of the meagre crack he had found to slip into, stood a metre-high trash can filled with a month’s worth of rotting garbage only left now because of its age and sickening smell. Gone were the scrapings of the kitchen pans and the leftovers from the diners’ tables; if it were food, food of any description, then there were always those who would seek it out.
Here, too, sprawled lazily against the unforgiving, unsympathetic concrete wall, lay a few pieces of discarded dab wood-lumber, a kind of thin sheet ply used for packing; it was all the scant cover could offer. However, it was better than nothing, better than the open streets, better than the many locked doors and the millions of searching eyes of the millions of searching Yams.
So, he waited. Waited, as the moon fought with the clouds that would hide its luminous glow from the streets. Waited for a passing Yam to reveal his hiding place just by simply looking in on him, too drunk, too stoned out of his skull to know better. Waited for that one sound that would let him know the Octocrocs had found what they had been looking for.
Yet should they find him, and they would, how kind for them to kill him. To dispose of his life as easy as swatting a fly or stepping on a bug and end it all now. That end would be the better. Better than the months of hell they’d put him through. Better then all that pain he’d had to suffer on that fateful night two years ago.
But as sweet as it would be, death was not their game; that was way too easy. Why kill a body when a well-placed stun nut or a finely honed sleeper dart, or even a plain old rap across the back of the scull with the butt of a shooter or piece of two by two, would have the desired effect. A long night’s work done, another much sought-after ticket taken from another bone-head stupid Yam who would end up back on the streets trying one more time to earn the creds that would get him home.
Death was always around the corner… every corner. Around every doorway and in every silent, noisy, busy street. Each day, each night for countless years now, some hundreds and thousands of unknown Yams had died, and would die for every single ticket that was out on the streets. Die for another hundred thousand more meaningless reasons, least of which was the ticket he had hidden on his person right now. A gift. A chance to play with the devil and run for the leave point one more time… but he had found to his cost that it was more like a stone weighed around his neck. A giant wooden cross that threatened to pull him down at every turn if he allowed it. However, he was wiser this time. A little. Wiser than he had been the first time with his first ticket.
He had travelled further this time, much further, from one end of the island to the other and across, both ways too. He had also learned to care less for his fellow Yams, ignore their wining and pitiful excuses. Slap their begging, self-pitiful sob stories to one side, for no sooner had you turned your back on them, they would up and stab you, split open your gut if they thought your ticket might be there. His learning had been harsh but had held him in good stead and he had not lost quite so much this time. Though he fought against it, the memory, the black painful even now memory of his first attempt at leaving Lagonda, slipped across the pathways of his mind to kick up the dust and re-start a sleeping brain. Jigging those painful pathways, he found the date.
‘Fifty-one. Yeah, that’s it. Fifty-one.’
He didn’t want to remember, cursing the memory for resurfacing but went with it anyway as his tongue dried and his lips turned a kind of blue.
It had been two years. Two years and almost two months since his first ticket. Since then, that day he would never forget. He had drifted around, barely surviving, barely making the days to the nights and the nights to the days, but he had. Thinking only to die, only to end it all. Then in the last eight–nine months, he was offered a second chance out of the blue, or, in Lagonda’s case, a stinking murky grey kind of haze… and he had been running and hiding from every micro Yam and Octocroc that could crawl out of the woodwork ever since.
Getting his second ticket (a ticket was the only way any one could get off this shit hole of a planet) and eluding the Octos (as commonly known) had made him the biggest most-sought-after Yam target this side of the pond, and then some. Not only was every open main street and every closed dirt-filled back alley to his destination port covered, but so too were every one of the fourteen cities on the eastern hemisphere that anyone could string together as a possible destination route. From those dark pig holes of every back alley, there could be at least a million Yams tracking him, or the myths and the shadows that might have been him. Every pair of eyes that were cast his way had the look of an easy cred, which to many was just enough to get by for another day. A bottle of booze, a crust of bread, a Jackie’; many a hundred thousand Yam had no thought, no desire to leave Lagonda. Theirs was the pitiful excuse of believing that all was well, and nothing was ever going to happen.
But for some, the higher-thinking Yams, it was a chance to get off this shit hole planet once and for all. From a mild-mannered, easy-going, bother-no-one kind of guy that he used to be, he’d had to learn to kill to save his own identity and life, and the truth of it was… he would do it again and as many times as needed to survive.
Having his second ticket had cost him a whole lot more than he could have imagined, but it was still way cheaper than his first… ‘If only…’ he began to rebuke himself as he waited in the dark corner of his hidey-hole, eager to apportion blame for his mistake, but his thoughts were disturbed by the sound he had been waiting for. Fully alert once again, sensitive ears filtering out the sounds of the city nightlife some streets away, tuned to the rubber boot scuffing dusty concrete somewhere out in the dark shadows, somewhere just out of sight. A not-so-careful Yam foot carrying too much weight crunching down on gravel in an unseen doorway. That one sound snapped him back to the shadows, back to the stinking alley, back to present-day Jano State City.
Bastards! his brain screamed at them as he held his breath, fearful that even that might alert them to where he was.
Bastards. Fucking bastards . Not needing to fight the rage that used to build, he instantly subdued his hate and feelings for the men seeking him out; after all, it was just a job to them. A night’s work done and a few creds earned.
‘Sorry, doll!’ he whispered to the memory of his dead wife as she chided him from the grave; she was never a lover of strong words. He silently asked for her forgiveness.
They were coming. Homing in on him as he waited just a few microseconds longer, waited as his inert sens