Torn From On High: Free City Book 2 (The Free City Series) (18 page)
Read Torn From On High: Free City Book 2 (The Free City Series) Online
Authors: S F Chapman
Appendix
List
of Characters in order of appearance
:
Nate
Briggs
Mr.
Briggs is a Serf and a Space Debris Retrieval Specialist onboard the
Billikin
.
Captain
Philip Takahashi
The Captain is the hard-nosed Master of the Low Earth Orbit Salvage Ship
Billikin.
Inspector
Second Class Ryo Trop
At age fifty-five, Mr. Trop is recently semi-retired from the
Free City Inquisitor's Office. He currently resides with twelve-year-old Dilma
at Number 17, Na Daracha Ársa Street, Apartment 392, in the Ballaghaderreen
District of Free City. He is considered by many to be second only to the Chief
Inspector in investigative abilities.
Dilma
Trop
The
twelve-year-old former parlormaid for the now-deceased Dimitri Verhovnyi, the
Supreme Imperial Warlord of the Outer Reaches lives in Free City with her
guardian Ryo Trop. Many suspect that Mr. Trop will eventually adopt the girl.
Dr.
Jana Fesai Ph.D.
This brilliant fifty-three year-old Physicist is the Research Director of the
Ultra Energy Physics Lab at Free City University. Jana often accompanies Ryo
Trop during social occasions. Jana is the mother of Lev Fesai.
Chief
Inspector Helga Bennet of the Free City Inquisitor's Office
Rumored to never sleep, the
seventy-year-old Chief Inspector is well known and respected for her toughness
and abilities to guide difficult investigations to successful conclusions.
Professor
Malcolm Evans/ Lieutenant Zmuda
As Head of the Department of Advanced Applied Molecular Biology
at Free City University he is loved and admired by his students. Professor
Evans is an occasional advisor for the Enlightenment Crusade. Little is known
outside of the Prime Minister's Office about his alternative persona as Spy
Master for the super secret CRAMP Operation.
Sabra
MacFarland
Nearly destitute and often characterized as idealistic and naive, Sabra attends
Free City University as a part-time student in the Department of Experimental
Studies. She frequently attends Enlightenment Crusade gatherings with her
idolized older sister Desiree. Sabra yearns to make more of her life.
Edlin
Classmate and minor friend of
Sabra MacFarland at Free City University.
Sabina
Finney
Considered by many to be manipulative and dismissive, the mysterious redheaded
CRAMP agent was recently cloned by Lieutenant Zmuda using the DNA of a long
dead North American woman. Little else is known of this twenty-five year-old
spy.
Tariq
Head of the group of
Paramilitarist Desert Serfs sent by Commander Frédéric Rameau to a secret
hideout in the Sahara Desert just after the death of Daniel Kufuzu, the Exalted
Warlord of EurAfrica.
The
“mute” slave
This tall, thin man is currently a General Facilities drudge at the sprawling
EurAfrican Imperial Military Base in Tunis.
Commander
of Covert Operations and Feudal Master of Paramilitarist Serfs Frédéric Rameau
. Frédéric was personally
appointed to the position of Head Spy for the Northern District of Africa when
he thwarted a poorly planned coup six years ago. Daniel Kufuzu personally
rewarded Frédéric with the prestigious appointment as thanks for preserving the
Warlord's standing as the Supreme Leader of EurAfrica. Rameau's office is at
the EurAfrican Imperial Military Base in Tunis.
Qadir
A subordinate member of the
Paramilitarist Desert Serfs.
Daniel
Kufuzu, the Exalted Warlord of EurAfrica
Supposedly killed by the massive explosion that
destroyed the EurAfrican capital city of Arusha, rumors persist that the brutal
Warlord somehow survived the disaster.
Mixion
Fahmi
This
twenty-seven year-old Australian woman was cloned over a year ago by Lieutenant
Zmuda at the CRAMP's secret lab in the basement of the Biology building at Free
City University. Mixion has proved to be invaluable to the CRAMP's efforts to
destabilize the regimes of the Warlords that dominate human affairs in the mid
twenty-fifth century. Zmuda considers the perceptive young woman to be
Second-in-Charge of the spy organization.
Jasper
Pomeroy
This
husky redheaded CRAMP agent is nearly twenty-eight years old. Jasper is a
recent clone of a rugged former farmhand from twenty-first century Blackall in
Queensland, Australia. Unlike Mixion, he speaks with a noticeable accent.
Fiefdom
Liaison Agent and Attack Craft Pilot Keira Norton
Attractive and often
sensitive, this twenty-seven year-old Free City resident is an especially
talented up-and-coming Fiefdom Liaison Agent at the Department of External
Affairs. The Registry Bureau recently certified Ms Norton as an Attack Craft
Pilot. Keira has a rocky romantic relationship with Lev Fesai.
Seamus
Franklin Nelson
Seamus is a ninety-seven year-old former Engineer on the
Billikin
who
currently resides in the quiet Eire District of Free City. For much of his life
Mr. Nelson was a Serf in the Crewmen and Dockhands Federation. He was
indentured for over fifty years to the owners and various Captains of the
Billikin
.
The
Head of the Connaught School for Disadvantaged Girls
Judgmental and persnickety,
few outside of the acclaimed institution are fond of this dour old woman.
Luis
Hernandez
Caretaker of New Grytviken, Superintendent of South Georgia Island and Harbor
Master of Cumberland East Bay.
Moresby
Luis Hernandez's old gray
tabby cat.
Herman
“Bowie” Kowalski
A washed out Paramilitarist, his strapping street punk is the brains behind the
EurAfrican 'Goons Gang,'
Norman
Rollo
Rollo is
a recent addition to the Goons Gang. He's considered by most people to be
especially dimwitted.
Bertrum
Hubert Schleim
Also known as Schleim or Slime. A member of the Goons Gang.
Fritzi
Reginald Wolfe
Often called Wolf or Wolfie by others. Second-in command of the Goons Gang.
Fiefdom
Liaison Agent Hugo Mackillroy
Agent Mackillroy attends to matters for the Free City Department
of External Affairs in New Rome and Nairobi. He is known by most in the Free
City Inquisitor's Office as “Mac.” Agent Mackillroy has served as a Liaison
Agent for nearly thirty years. Mac is a longtime friend of Ryo Trop.
Lev
Fesai
An active
and highly committed member of the idealistic Enlightenment Crusade, Lev is a
faltering Grad student at Free City University's Department of Physics. Often
quite a womanizer, Mr. Fesai has recently committed himself to a monogamous
relationship with Keira Norton. The twenty-nine year-old is the only child of
Dr. Jana Fesai Ph.D.
Inspector
Second Class Zara Kamchatka
Permanently stationed in Nairobi, Kamchatka tends to
investigative matters in East Africa for the Free City Inquisitor's Office.
Tough and wily, Inspector Kamchatka is often mentioned as a possible
replacement for Helga Bennet as Chief Inspector.
Forensic
Technician Second Class Nicola Jenks
Nicola is a talented expert at uncovering hidden details of
criminal activities. She is especially well known for her excellent efforts at
signal and image enhancement.
Cadet
Inspector Helen MacDermish
This recent twenty-two-year-old addition to the Free City
Inquisitor's Office works on routine investigative matters during the graveyard
shift.
About
the book
It was
quite clear to me as I finished up work on the Science Fiction Action/Adventure
novel
The Ripple in Space-Time
that the amusing and often horrific
exploits of Inspector Ryo Trop, Lieutenant Zmuda, Jasper, Mixion and especially
little Dilma should be continued. All three of my longtime editors also
clamored for more tales from Free City and the moldering feudal fiefdoms
beyond.
Shortly
after
The Ripple in Space-Time
was published, I wrote
Dreg’s Scamp
as the first chapter for a possible project with the irresistible title of
Torn
From On High
. At the time, I was uncertain as to how Nate Briggs’ most
gruesome death would fit into a story or whether it would even include any of
the characters from
The Ripple in Space-Time.
But the chapter and the
book title just begged to be fleshed out into a story.
Unlike
my previous six novels, I started
Torn From On High
without any idea as
to how it would end. A month or so after beginning the project, I wrote Chapter
6 21.080N, 12.271E and the arc of the story came together in a long list of
chapter summaries. The book was completed just after New Years Day in 2013.
The
Ripple in Space-Time
was mainly about the hard-boiled and Film Noir inspired detective
Ryo Trop and the dreadful Post Apocalyptic world that followed a huge war
sometime in our future. In
Torn From On High
I decided to develop many
of the more interesting characters from
The Ripple in Space-Time
and
give them a more terrestrial adventure. As a side note, some of the characters
in the Free City Series will also appear in the very different MAC Series that
is due out in a year or so; Hint: Think clones....
Several
locations in
Torn From On High
were just as important as the characters.
I decided that Nate’s body would be discovered in a remote and bone-chilling
location. For many years I have been a big fan of the Discovery Channel’s
Deadliest
Catch,
which is a rough and tumble series about the Bering Sea crab fishing
industry. I briefly considered using Amaknak Island and the fishing port of
Dutch Harbor in the Bering Sea. But I settled instead on the far-flung South
Georgia Island and the long forgotten whaling port of Grytviken located half a
world away in the South Atlantic.
I
found the convoluted and little known history of Tunis, which has risen and
fallen many times in its six thousand year history, equally fascinating. As the
Barbary Coast pirates had done centuries ago, I made Tunis the center of
skullduggery in the distant future of the Free City world.
I
needed a particularly isolated site to tuck away the Desert Serfs as they
tended to their secret project. Alternating between Google Earth images and
Wikipedia entries, I selected the forsaken ruins of the Fort of Djaba in Niger.
A thousand years ago the Fort protected an important trading route but, alas,
the difficult environment and terrible isolation proved to be too much for
those who were stationed there. To this day it is still nearly impossible to
travel to the area. A few very rugged visitors have posted pictures and short videos
from the site on line.
As
Torn
From On High
is prepared for publication worldwide on the 2nd of May 2014,
I have done some early work on book number three in the series. With luck, it
too will be available soon. Updates and excerpts will be posted on my web site:
www.sfchapman.com
.
Enjoy,
SF
Chapman
Northern
California, USA. March 2014.
The adventures of Ryo Trop and Lt. Zmuda began here in
The Ripple in Space-Time
-- Free City Book 1
THE
CITIES OF EARTH ARE ENDANGERED!
Time
is running out!
In
the chaos of the near future, Inspector Ryo Trop hunts for space pirates bent
on domination in a mad dash across the Solar System.
Who was she?
Floyd stared with great interest at the slumbering
woman as she was slowly freed from the cocoon. She was the first new person to
be generated in over fifteen thousand years!
For
eons, the same seven people had been cloned innumerable times. They lived
ordinary lives and died ordinary deaths. But Floyd and his companions always
started out in the same very unhuman-like way as cocoon-bound twenty-five year
old adults in full possession of their past memories.
Everything
would change with the arrival of the intriguing young woman.
