Down and Out in Regrets Read online

  Contents

  Free Download

  Introduction

  Down and Out in Regrets

  Regrets of the Anamatron Cat

  Old Regrets

  A Mystery of Regrets

  The Breakdown of Regrets

  About the Author

  Down and Out in Regrets:

  Regrets Station Series #1

  Copyright © (2023) by Rebecca M. Senese

  * * *

  Published by RFAR Publishing

  * * *

  Cover Design copyright © (2023) by

  RFAR Publishing

  Cover art copyright ©

  diversepixel/DepositPhotos.com

  * * *

  ISBN: 978-1-927603-61-1

  * * *

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  * * *

  No AI programs were used in the creation of this book.

  Sign up for the author’s New Releases mailing list

  and get a free copy of the Rebecca M. Senese Sampler.

  * * *

  Click here to get started: https://rebeccasenese.com/newsletter/ ‎

  Down and Out in Regrets: Regrets Station Series #1

  Mackenzie Bronson barely scrapes out a living on the space station known as Regrets. Work as a private detective brings strange cases on a place like Regrets as Mac finds herself collecting strays both old and new.

  * * *

  Enough to build an unlikely family. If you could call this bunch of weirdos “family.”

  * * *

  At least they don’t try to kill her.

  Even if they do bring trouble.

  * * *

  As if Mac can’t get in enough trouble on her own.

  * * *

  Join Mac as she strives to survive Down and Out in Regrets.

  * * *

  Includes: Down & Out in Regrets, Regrets of the Anamatron Cat, Old Regrets, A Mystery of Regrets, and The Breakdown of Regrets.

  Introduction

  A new private detective, stuck on a space station in the middle of nowhere. Eking out a living on the station nicknamed Regrets, Mackenzie Bronson finds herself working the oddest mix of cases.

  These stories introduce Mac and those who reside on Regrets. Solving cases and accumulating misfits that might just fit into some kind of strange family.

  So here they are: a missing person, an anamatron cat, a VIP’s wayward daughter, a misplaced scrounger, and a station under attack.

  Surviving the day. Surviving the night. With hopefully, no regrets.

  * * *

  Rebecca M. Senese

  Toronto, Canada

  2023

  Down and Out in Regrets

  Despite the hype, the public relations campaigns, and the work to revamp the Regus Colony, it remained a cesspool at the buttcrack of nowhere. Once the highspeed drives came into play, using a fraction of the fuel, the crazy gold rush days of the colony were over. Those who could, escaped for better shores.

  The rest of us, the sludge, was left behind in good old Regrets.

  That’s what we took to calling the colony among ourselves.

  I don’t know why anyone else stayed, only my own reasons, and most of those boiled down to the fact that I had nowhere else to go.

  One good thing about the exodus. I got my pick of offices.

  Landlords were desperate, so even a bad credit risk like me could rent a place. I chose a corner office, built right into the cliff face of the Regus mountain, twenty levels up. It faced northwest, overlooking the empty expanse that stretched northward. Barren, rocky ground, devoid of any vegetation. An almost constant wind kept the ground swept clean of loose debris although dust storms still rose up.

  Solid green houses had been erected on the south side of the mountain, making the view from that side more prestigious, expensive, and luxurious, but I preferred the barren, desolation. It reminded me that what was underneath the pretty facade was the same harsh world.

  Besides, the sunsets from my view were truly spectacular. Bursts of purple, orange, red and gold laced the sky. No matter what job I was doing, I always tried to be in my office for the end of the day, just to watch that light show. For one brief half hour, the sky would burn with glorious colour before fading into darkness.

  Okay so maybe a reminder of the harsh world wasn’t the only reason I chose that office.

  Plus, without the landlord’s knowledge, I even managed to convert a small corner into my living quarters. Behind a set of folding panels, I had a single, insta-fold bed that flipped open from the size of a suitcase and then back, and served as my bed. An ancient food recycler that seemed capable of conjuring all flavours, but outputted everything with the consistency of porridge, sat on a cupboard near the insta-bed.

  The office came with a washroom complete with sink and toilet, but no shower, not even a vibe one. I ended up taking sponge baths and keeping my head shaved so I didn’t have to deal with trying to wash my hair. That turned out to be some trouble as my hair grew fast, until I learned that a man’s beard suppressant gel worked well on my head.

  The rest of my office was, well, my office.

  I had a single desk that angled so it faced both the door and the windows. A client would enter from my left and cross to the front of my desk, with the windows to the front and right. My back was to the cliff face and a secondary, emergency door, hidden behind my old book case.

  Because sometimes those clients turned out to be debt collectors and I needed a way to escape.

  Although the desk looked scruffy and old, with pocked metal legs and scuffs on the metal surface, it was a smart desk, one of the very first. That meant it didn’t have all the latest bells and whistles. Its connection to the city AI could be intermittent at times or downright confusing. Its holoprojections always had a ghostly quality and didn’t have all the detail needed, but its flat, two-dimensional imagining was still first rate and it had a decent processing speed.

  So what if it didn’t have the latest and greatest, and it looked a little worn around the edges? I was very much the same.

  I was sitting behind that desk, watching the beginning of the sunset, when the knock came at my door. I tapped the smooth, desk surface. My day calendar popped up, revealing a complete empty. I didn’t have any meetings or clients. Sadly, it had been like that for the past few weeks.

  If my rent wasn’t coming due in a few days, I might have let whoever it was keep on knocking. I didn’t much like being interrupted during the sunset.

  But a quick check of my calendar for the coming days showed me the same big empty.

  I closed the projection and sighed. There would be other sunsets.

  I hit the unlock button. The door slid open.

  The man who stepped in didn’t look like he belonged on Regrets.

  Firstly, he was too tall and thin to have worked in the fuel mines. At his height, he would need a non-standard evac-suit and the mining companies were notoriously stingy in providing specialized equipment. Plus his thinness would have been a liability, even in the low gravity outside the colony city. Bones still snapped if you couldn’t stop a wayward crate, no matter how slow moving.

  Secondly, his clothing looked like real fabric, not the recycled, plasticized stuff that filled the shops here. As he moved across the office toward my desk, the fabric shimmered, reflecting the beginnings of the sunset. The navy blue was so dark it was almost black, but with a d
epth and richness I’d never seen before.

  Expensive. Way too expensive to have come from Regrets.

  Who was this guy?

  I studied his face as he stopped in front of my desk. Smooth, angular. A neat, trim beard lined his jaw and around his pale lips. Black hair smoothed back on his head. He had almost amused look on his face as he regarded me.

  I could just imagine what he thought he saw.

  A short, slightly pudgy woman wearing a baggy, faded brown tunic. Her head shaved but sporting thick, black eyebrows. Tattoos that looked like vines curling around her arms.

  I raised one of my eyebrows.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re Mackenzie Bronson, the private detective?” he asked.

  “I am,” I said. “And you are?”

  “My name isn’t...”

  “You can leave then,” I said. I waved toward the door.

  He looked startled.

  “If you aren’t going to give me your name, you can get out,” I said.

  The startled look faded. An almost begrudging smile curled his lips.

  “Very well. I’m Mr. Meadows. I’ve been asked to retain your services.”

  “Asked by who?”

  “My client wishes some confidentiality,” he said.

  Interesting. It was starting to make some sense. Meadows was probably a lawyer or some other kind of assistant to the ‘client’.

  The scent of money was growing ever stronger.

  I reached over to the right side of my desk and tapped out a code. From the front of the desk, a modular cube slid out and unfolded itself into the shape of a chair.

  “Why don’t you sit down and tell me what you’re looking for?” I said.

  By the time Meadows left, I had all the particulars and had missed the sunset. Automatically, my desk had brought up the night lighting in my office, giving the space a nice, golden glow. I hunched over the surface, reviewing the few details Meadows had deigned to give me.

  It was a missing persons case. A girl named Cassidy. The three dimensional image of her floated over my desk. The ghostly blur made it difficult to discern her features in detail, but I could tell she had broad, strong features, piercing black eyes that shone out of her dark skin. Her hair was cropped short, not quite, but almost shaved. She looked older and tougher than her seventeen years.

  Meadows hadn’t told me the relationship with his client, although I suspected daughter. Whatever she was, she had run and they wanted her returned. Their last indication was that she had come to the Regus Colony.

  If there was ever a place to disappear, it was in Regrets.

  Enough lowlifes to make getting decent, new ID cheap and easy. Not the best ID, for that you had to go to one of the bigger colonies and pay almost triple, but a Regrets ID would get you off planet with enough of a head start to make tracking difficult.

  I had to find Cassidy before she made it off world.

  I closed the holo and then downloaded everything from the desk into my personal drive. It was an older style, one that looked like a watch that strapped onto my wrist, but it connected directly into my tattoos. Those vines that looked like decorative tattoos were just covering for the implanted filaments that traced up my arms. They’d been state of the art when I’d joined the army, increasing my strength and speed. Three years later, they’d been banned when it was found that several men who had gotten them turned psychotic.

  They’d never seemed to have any detrimental effect on me, although I was probably a little crazy to begin with, and that little bit of crazy had carried me through a lot.

  Dealing with a runaway should be a no brainer.

  Famous last words.

  Druthers Bar on the third level was almost, but not quite, the lowest of the lows. Set up in what used to be one of the old refinery depots, the bar was long and narrow, with the bar top running most of the length along the right side when you walked in. Lighting was dim, not from any aesthetic look but from Druthers’ own cheapness at either replacing fixtures that got broken in the not-so infrequent fights or his reluctance to pay the utilities.

  The floor had a rough, pebbled texture, easier for grav-boots to lock into but a bitch to clean, not that Druthers bothered with that sort of thing too often. Just enough to stop the inspectors from shutting him down when they got tired of having their palms greased. A row of booths stretched along the left wall. The black leather was old, recycled plasticized fuel dust, woven together. It was hard, stiff, and long-lasting. No matter how many people sat in those booths for however many hours, there never appeared to be any kind of wear in the fabric. Those booths would probably withstand a nuclear explosion.

  The bar running the length of the room was fashioned from the same material but had been painted to look like it was wood. Surprisingly, the effect was quite convincing, even after a myriad of wipe-downs by the bartenders. When I’d first seen it, I’d been surprised that Druthers had spent the money for the paint job until I learned he’d bribed an artist with a promise of life-long free drinks, only to renege when the job was done. That was pure Druthers, especially when he had the artist beaten up after the guy had tried to call the cops.

  Yet, for all his flaws, there was one thing that gave Druthers the edge in the cesspit of Regrets. He watered down the booze only about a quarter of anyone else.

  That alone earned him the regard of most who lived here.

  The place was at half-capacity when I arrived. Most of the booths were taken. About half of the tables in the centre held people hunched over their bottles or glasses. Only a few scattered patrons lined the bar.

  Despite that, the air still smelled stuffy and dense, pungent with the smell of bodies and the sleek, greasy stench left over from the refinery. A sour odour that no amount of cleaning or disinfecting would erase.

  Smelled like home.

  Although I technically didn’t like to drink on the job, I couldn’t come into Druthers and not buy anything. I settled on a glass of their blueberry whiskey that had the colour and taste of diesel fuel. There was no indication of blueberry anywhere in the vile stuff. I had to assume it got its name because the guy who first poured it was named “blueberry.”

  As I paid for my drink, I added a healthy tip for the bartender, Sludge. A man for whom the word grey had been invented, Sludge stood only a few inches taller than me, but had a full, flowing mane of grey hair. It matched his grey beard that hung in a perfect V to the midpoint of his narrow chest, and his skin tone, that had a sickly grey colour. Yet I had never know Sludge to be anything but in the best of health.

  He gave me a grunt as he handed back my cred chit.

  “Mac,” he said.

  “Anybody looking for new ID?” I asked.

  He gave a shrug as he pulled out a rag and began wiping the bar. The fact that he didn’t move away told me he was still willing to talk. I just had to ask the right questions.

  “It’d be a girl, about seventeen, black skin, black hair. Healthy, not some scrawn job.”

  He tilted his head as he rubbed at a particular spot. I couldn’t see any difference in that spot from any other on the bar’s smooth surface, but he continued to work away on it.

  “Maybe last night,” he finally said.

  I waited a beat, to see if he would give me anything else. Finally I had to spur him.

  “Last night,” I said.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “I should think that tip and some good will would get me more than a ‘maybe last night’,” I said.

  His jaw shifted as he clenched his teeth. He gave a quick shake of his head. I was about to protest when he leaned closer to the bar, scrubbing hard at the spot.

  “Barlow.” His voice was a bare whisper.

  With one final wipe at the spot, he straightened and walked away to the other end of the bar.

  Barlow. One of the major scumbags with the best ID in the colony. But hardly anyone bought from him because his price was too high, and he always jacked it after the
fact. If he hadn’t already, I’d lay even odds that he was going to corral Cassidy into his stable or maybe use her organs for illegal replacements. Some people would not use vat-based organs. With an assortment of brainwashing and chemical inducements, Barlow could make it almost impossible to escape.

  I had to find her before that happened.

  And I was already a day behind.

  I slugged back the drink and then froze.

  Oh, that had been a bad idea.

  It burned down my throat and blazed through my stomach. I could almost feel my insides liquefy. The burning sensation stretched all the way down to my toes, making them tingle. Then after a moment, it began to fade, leaving behind a glowing warm that spread through my limbs. There was even a lingering taste on the tip of my tongue. Was it?

  Yes, it was blueberry.

  Son of a bitch.

  I took a step back and could already feel wobbly. I was starting to see the appeal, but getting soused tonight wouldn’t do me any good. I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and swallowed, triggering my metabolism. Firing up, it would burn through the alcohol in a matter of minutes, leaving me totally sober. I’d found after several beers, it kicked in on its own, never letting me getting more than a slight buzz.

  Annoying, but one of the prices of my implants. They’d been tuned to keep me sober at all times. Better for fighting, and although I’d left the army behind years ago, my implants had never got the memo.