Here's the openung chapter the beginning of what I hope will be a pretty good series. The pic is from Alpha Protocal, a video game. Just for some flava...

I AM I

BY
Howard Night

THE LAST NIGHT

The night was passing by quickly; soon the sun would begin to brighten the eastern Gulf horizon. The line of flashing lights from the nighttime traffic would be lost in the bright blue glow of the dawn. The scene would be replaced by a bright blue sky criss-crossed with the silhouettes of the millions of aircabs moving above them like ants across a glass bowl.
            John Church sat on the edge of the soft bed watching the night pass. In a few hours morning would come and he would leave the Matagorda Platform…leave the Gulf Coast…leave the United States…leave the Planet Earth…forever.
            …but not really.
            It was the mission of a lifetime, he told himself, and he should be anticipating starting his life over again on the other side of the Known. But then again…he wasn’t actually.
            There were a lot of things about living on the developed side of the Universe that John was going to miss. The further you got from Earth the worse the food got. Something about the bacteria that didn’t make it out to the colonies someone once said. Whatever, all John knew was that the only place you could get a decent cheesesteak was here on Earth. Cheesesteaks he would miss…among other things.
            He turned and looked over his shoulder at the very lush and beautiful suite that FiveStars had put him up in. It was a very amenable, very nice room to stay in for your last night on Earth. He would have to book it himself for another couple of nights. Maybe even book the two lovely young ladies who lay sleeping in the sable fur covered bed again as well.
            He leaned back and slid his hand over the golden brown skin of the blonde’s thigh. She moaned and rolled over a bit, sliding a curvy thigh up onto the legs of her friend, who moaned and snuggled closer. He would miss girls like these; on the other side of the Known you could only find Synths working in the Bordellos but on Earth there were plenty of Reals who did the job. And there really was no comparison.
            He felt a familiar urge as that smooth thigh slid under his palm but the looming adventure weighed on his mind. Or maybe it was the mind boggling complications that distracted him from the bliss of the king size bed. Either he was leaving or he wasn’t, either he was going receive a kings ransom or just a minor fortune, either he was going on life long mission, or he was going on a short vacation. He knew he was supposed to be preparing himself to leave, saying goodbye to old friends and tying up loose ends. But for what? He was only going to be coming back here this afternoon…probably to stay on the Platform for another week…maybe two.
            Reluctantly he pulled his hand away from the nubile body of…Trea? Drea? Whatever…he stood and flexed his long hard body. His nearly two meter tall frame was as fit as advanced Bio-aid could make it despite all that he had put it through in his Forty-Three years. Somewhere, at two separate points along the twisted path his tough life had taken John had lost his original right arm and most of his right leg. The replacements were indistinguishable for the most part save for the faint bands of slightly lighter skin encircling and marking the points where the new parts began. He could have the bands removed and probably should have but the thought did not appeal to him. Scars were such a rare thing now and he had earned his.
            John reached down and scooped up his discarded pants. Early as it was he couldn’t get into FiveStars main lab just yet but he could get some time in at the Prep Room and go over the mission plan…
            …for the mission he wasn’t going on.
            The jet black pants slid on easy and, responding to the room temperature and humidity, they expanded a bit in the legs so his skin could breath. He found his shirt balled up among the furs on the bed and pulled it free. The dark blue, wrinkly mess started straightening itself out immediately and was perfectly smooth and creased before he got it over his shoulders. He walked barefoot over to the large hanging displayer on the wall and got a look at himself.
            His hair was a bit mussed but looked fine. Maybe three or four centuries ago, long before modern medicine, people might have thought him to be in his late twenties. With an expensive and in his case, mostly illegal, set of nano-bots cursing through his blood to make repairs to him on the cellular level around the clock, John would probably look this youthful for another fifty years. His mirror image spun about as the displayer showed him how he looked from every angle. He was starting to show a bit of shadow on his jaw but he could shave after…Damn it! Still he could not help but plan as though he was coming right back. The procedure should only take an hour or two and he was mentally planning on coming back here after.
            It was frustrating but he tried to tell himself that there was no coming back here after…even though (sigh) he actually would be.
            From the room’s wall safe John pulled a dark lock box. It opened after reading his biometric signature from just a moment of contact with his bare skin. Inside were some documents, the contract for this job and some of the payment bonds, a couple of his self made Tact-bots and lastly his modified Sever 720 personal handgun with the strap on holster. He grabbed one of the bots and the Sever and returned the lock box to the wall safe.
            Restless, Church put on the strap and holstered the gun. He padded barefoot back to the bed and sought out his boots one of which he had to kneel to retrieve from beneath it. When he stood back up the young blonde woman stirred and peeked at him from behind half closed eyes.
            “Ooh, daddy…” she purred as her eyes fell on his gun. She slid and rolled in the big bed until she was straddling her companion and presented her backside to him. “Shoot me with that big gun.”
            John smiled, reached out and kneaded the roundness of her flesh with his big hands. He had time he reminded himself… and he wasn’t coming back. Even if he was.

                                    The decision to walk had been a good one. It was cool on the Platform in the half light and the air was filled with salty gulf sea mist. There were few out and about this early and John had the mile-long walkway mostly to himself. So he used the time to try to mentally prepare to leave everything he knew behind. He would, in all likelihood, never see Earth again. It was not that much of a huge deal; John Church had no family and no real friends who he would be leaving behind. That was one of the reasons he made such a good candidate for the contract.
            Church fell in step a few meters behind a middle aged couple. They were walking a bit slow for his taste but he didn’t want to interrupt their hand in hand walk. He would miss Earth, and this whole side of the settled universe none the less. The further people got from Earth, it seemed, the further they got from their own humanity. Though it wasn’t the lifestyle practices that bothered him, it was the little things. Good restaurants, a decent bio-man, women of a certain… he would have to learn to like it, he guessed.
            He was also going to have to learn to read people and situations on the other side. A new place…a new WORLD could throw off his instincts. It was a talent that helped him immensely in the past.
            And present.
            Private walk ended as he spied a couple walking ahead of him a ways, their figures obscured by the morning mist. Church stopped along the dock. The sea breeze had shifted, bringing in a cool gust of air from the east. There was something in the air that riled him. He couldn’t identify it but there was something…
            Nonchalantly he reached into his jacket and pulled out a pack of Lories, something else he would miss because they only sold them on Earth. He slid the crisp rolled paper between his lips and popped the cap off, igniting the tobacco. After a shake to make sure it was empty he crumpled up the pack and continued his casual stroll to work.
            Behind him, on the ground, his Tact-bot crawled out of the pack and began its surveillance.
            There were three of them, a standard attack squad so this was no mere assassination attempt. Whoever they were they meant to gain access to FiveStars labs then. His walk to the facility must had been anticipated he figured, and they were looking to use him to somehow get them in.
            From his Tact-bot feed he could see that one had taken up position beneath the dock ahead of him, the other two slipped onto the dock behind, making a stealth approach. They wanted to take him quietly.
            Church smiled.