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Die Trying
Katherine Berlow: 35
Lucas Wesley: 36
Hatch Wesley: 16
Frigus Snow: 27
Fry Snow: 27
Nick Writer: 36
Neo Writer: 33
Erica Brasseur: 28
Katherine Berlow's sunflower eyes blinked open. She was laying in her bed asleep when the phone ringing brought her back to reality. She grumbled a little as she focused onto the time on the holographic clock on her bed. "Who the Hell is calling me at one in the morning?" Her voice was a touch strained from not being used all night. She cleared it and sat up hearing the phone ring again. She stared at the floor while her long brown hair hid the aggravated expression on her face. She stood up and shuffled out of her bedroom and pushed a button on a flat screen in the hallway. A blue-eyed man with short dirty blonde hair appeared before her. Kitty's knotted hair was still in her face when he spoke.
"Kitty? That you?" he asked.
"Lucas? Why the Hell are you calling me at one in the fucking morning?" It was too early for her to censor herself.
"Oh good, it is you. Look we have a problem," Lucas answered quickly.
"We? You called me, I'd say you had a problem." Kitty pulled the hair from her face.
"No, I said we because it's our son."
"Hatch?" Kitty was suddenly alert and her eyes narrowed at a distraught Lucas. "What did you do?" she growled.
"I didn't do anything! Hatch just called me from jail and I don't have the cash to get him out right now."
"Jail?" Kitty was on the edge of losing her temper. "Why is he in jail?"
"I don't know, alright! Just go down there with a hundred dollars!" Lucas flared and the screen flickered off. Kitty was ready to rip the screen off the wall.
"Bastard," she snapped and went into her room to get dressed. Her roommate Erica Brasseur heard the commotion and had gotten up in a slight rage.
"Who the fuck calls a person at one in the God damn morning!" Her voice rang through the hallway. Kitty came out of her room wearing pants under the t-shirt she had slept in.
"It was Lucas, Hatch is in jail," Kitty answered in an exasperated tone.
"Hatch? What's he doing in jail?" Erica calmed a touch pulled her short black hair into a ponytail.
"Probably mixing up with those delinquents Lucas lets come to his house all the time." Kitty walked past her and down a set of stairs to the living room.
"I don't know why you let that man have part custody over Hatch." Erica crossed her arms. "He was a cheap, lazy, bastard when you married him and he's a cheap, lazy, bastard now." Erica followed her.
"He's changed, Erica," Kitty seemed to be convincing herself.
"Changed?! Your son is in jail and you think he's changed! I'll bet he won’t even pay for bail!" Erica yelled while Kitty grabbed her jacket and keycard. "Where are you going? To kick Lucas's sorry ass? Can I come?" Erica's feral nature was showing all too well at this point.
"I'm going to get Hatch..." Kitty walked out the door and towards her car. Erica's brown eyes flared and she went out too. Kitty got into her craft and swished the card through a slit next to the steering stick. It hovered a few inches from the ground and Erica leapt in before Kitty started driving.
Kitty drove in total silence. Quite a few things were going on in her head right then. Earlier that day she had been offered a promotion to Captain if she agreed to run an experimental air ship called the Endurance. It was built with the sole intent of having nothing but defensive systems. Kitty was perfect for the job, and she knew it. The problem was if she took the promotion she'd be traversing the galaxy and would only be around earth's orbit two weeks out of the year. She wouldn't be able to see her family much and Hatch would have to live with his father. Unless he could come with her, but that was unfair to his father. She re-gripped the steering stick as the blue jet shaped machine hovered down the industrial black plastic road. She was lucky; no one seemed to be driving at this ungodly hour but her.
"Kitty, stop!" Erica yelled. "You just flew past the station!"
"I did?" Kitty slowed and looked behind her.
"Yeah, ya' did." Erica sighed as Kitty backed into the parking lot. The car stopped, landed, and Kitty got out.
"You coming?" she asked. Erica took in the number of police cars.
"Uh...I think I'd rather stay out here."
"Suit yourself." With that, Kitty went into the station.
"Ma'am?" A lady at the front desk waved her down.
"I'm here to pick up a Hatchet Wesley."
"Follow me, Ma'am." The lady led Kitty back to the jail cells. As soon as she spotted a boy with brown, spiky hair, she stormed past her.
"HATCHET!"
"Uh-oh..." Hatch uttered.
"What the Hell are you doing in jail?! Did your father have something to do with this?!" Kitty's temper flared.
"What?! No! I mean..." Hatch wasn't used to seeing his mother like this. "It was my fault! I swear!" Kitty didn't say a word and she walked to the desk with the fine in hand.
"What was he arrested for?" Kitty asked sliding her keycard on the counter.
"He was caught assisting a hacking," the woman answered and swished her card through a little black machine on the desk.
"Assisting a hacking?" Kitty suddenly remembered Lucas's old job. He had sworn to her he didn't do that sort of thing anymore. "Did they catch the guy he was assisting?"
"Unfortunately no. We do have a picture of the suspect though. Have you seen him?" She pushed a button and a holographic image of her husband appeared.
"Yes...yes I have. That's my ex-husband." Kitty was so angry she couldn't think straight anymore. Hatch came out of the jail cell a bit meekly and walked up to his mother. When he saw his dad's picture on the holographer he went pale.
"Shit..." he muttered. "Mom, I swear it's not what it looks like!" He prepared to defend his father once again.
"Get in the craft!" Kitty pointed out the door. Hatch did as ordered. Erica looked behind her as Hatch got in the backseat.
"So, what'd ya' do? And how pissed is Kitty?"
"I helped dad hack into some guy's account and Mom looks ready to rip the station apart..." Hatch muttered.
"Oh...shit..." Just then, Kitty stormed out of the station, taking down one of the doors with her. Erica quickly slipped into the driver's seat.
"ERICA! OPEN THE DOOR!" Erica reached over and pushed open the passenger's side. Kitty got in.
"Card, please." Grumbling, Kitty handed over the card and Erica started the craft. The ride home wasn't only as silent as the ride back, but even more awkward. Erica swore Hatch was ready to wet himself in the back each time she checked to make sure he hadn't jumped out along the way. Once they arrived Erica stopped the craft and it landed. No one bothered to get out. Erica sighed, closed her eyes, and leaned back against the seat. "Are we spending the night in the car, or what?" she asked. Kitty threw the craft door open and got out with a slam. She walked inside, but Hatch and Erica stayed in. "She'll be fine in the morning, Munchkin." Erica still made fun of his height even though he had a spurt at fifteen and was now taller than her.
"Thanks Erica…" Hatch got out and she followed.
Erica's eyes opened as the first rays of dawn crept into the window. Someday she was going to break this habit, but for now instinct overrode her urge to have the sleep requirements of an infant. She got up, stiffly, from the couch and quietly went upstairs. She came back down fully dressed and went into the kitchen for her daily shot of orange juice.
Hatch came down a little while later. "Hey, Squirt." He just grunted as a response and sat down at the table. Erica removed a plate with two toaster pastries on it. She pushed a button on the left bottom rim and they started to warm. "You're mom up yet?" He grunted again as she placed the plate onto the table. Kitty came down the stairs in full air force uniform with her brown hair in a tight bun on the back of her head. She looked totally alert and fresh. Erica pushed a button the liquid dispenser that said OJ and pushed her cup underneath it.
"I'm going to work early." Lieutenant Berlow's heels clacked on the floor. She took a toaster pastry and left.
"Good morning to you too." Erica grinned while watching her cup fill. "What you want for breakfast, Kiddo?"
"Ugh." His head hit the table.
"Ugh it is." Erica drank down her orange juice in one gulp and pushed some buttons on the Solid Dispenser and eggs, and toast materialized within it. The food steamed as she placed the plate in front of the teen and made him a cup of pineapple juice. "Ya' didn't sleep too well, did ya'?" Erica sat down and ate the last toaster pastry. Hatch nibbled his toast. "You going to school today?" She prodded.
"Yeh…" h e answered. The boy could have cancer, the flu, and be an amputee and he would still go to school the next day. Erica admired that, a little.
"You can nap on the shuttle." Erica heard it land outside. Hatch just got up and walked out. Erica tossed his leftovers in the trash and set it on disintegrate.
Kitty walked along the sterile halls of the Intra-Planetary Space Exploration Organization. IPSEO was a NASA ran base centered around the Endurance project. When Kitty was chosen to work on the project she was slightly surprised that the air force would be interested in something entirely built on the concept of totally defensive systems. Space exploration also seemed to be something that NASA would want to exclusively handle, but it wasn't her position to question such things. Her job was to follow air force orders and that was all. As she approached the meeting hall her mind started to traverse through the events of that morning. She knew Lucas was a bad influence on Hatch, but despite that he was a good man and she trusted him. Her mind snapped directly back to business once she walked through the meeting room doors.
Erica pulled on her black trench coat, finished off another glass of juice, and left the house. She arrived at her local bar and grill called the Bloody Dingo. Erica unlocked the building and went inside. She turned on the lights, started up the stove, and gave the counter one more wipe down before jumping over it and flipped the CLOSED sign on the doors to OPEN.
Two people, one a man with long black hair, the other a woman with short purple hair, walked into the bar moments later. "Hey, guys."
"Hello, Erica." The man tightened his pony-tail.
"Hello you miserable little God-damned, sorry-ass, fucking excuse for a waste-of-a-life," the woman uttered.
"Poached, right Neo?" Erica grinned at the one with purple hair.
"Aye." The two took their seats. Smiling, Erica placed two plates of eggs, one scrambled, the other poached, in front of them.
Nick and Neo Writer, a three year's difference between the two, were always the first into Erica's place. They would have been good paying customers, had Erica let them pay for their food.
"Hello my little Doberman." A man with short red hair walked in and behind the counter to kiss Erica on the cheek.
"Hi, Fry," Erica answered. "I thought you had to be at the hospital today?"
"I do, in about thirty minutes. I thought I'd come check on you."
"I'm alright. Had to help Kitty bail her kid outta’ jail this morning." Erica fixed Fry's usual decafe with a biscotti cookie inside.
"Hatch? He doesn't seem like the type to get arrested." Nick stabbed his eggs with a fork.
"He's not. That damn waste of carbon got him in trouble." Erica broke Fry's cookie as she thought about Lucas. "Sorry."
"It's alright." Fry waved and took his breakfast. "What happened?"
"Kitty wouldn't tell me. She was pretty moody though, went to work early."
"I'm sure he has a good excuse made up for when he gets home. He really loves his father," Dr. Writer said with the same tone she did when talking to a patient.
"Don't throw in that psych crap with me, Neo," Erica muttered.
"Psych crap? All I said was that he loved his father."
"Yeah, but I know it's coming."
"Neo does have a valid point, Wolfy." Fry used yet another one of his canine themed nicknames for Erica.
"Don't you have to go to work now?" She hated it when he took Neo's side. Fry checked his watch and drank the rest of his coffee.
"I guess so. Bye." He kissed Erica on the cheek again before leaving.
"I'm surprised he came down here." Neo smirked.
"And what's that supposed to mean?!" Erica snapped back.
"He's usually so wrapped up in work you'd think he'd have gone in early rather than come and see you."
"Neo…" Nick warned. Erica audibly growled at her snide remark.
"As much fun as this is; I have to go to work." Neo got up and left some cash on the counter.
"Bitch." Erica snatched it up and gave it to Nick.
"I'll sneak it into her coat later." He stuffed the money into his pants pocket. "It's all an act you know, she's not really like that."
"Yeah, yeah. Well she should become a soap star." Erica took Neo's clean plate and disintegrated it.
"She could become rich in a New York minute." Nick just shrugged.
Hatch was dozing on and off at the large shuttle made it's rounds. He was trying not to think about what would happen to him when he got home.
"Hellooo? Hatch!" A blonde girl sat next to him. "You up all night making something?" She waved her hand in front of his face.
"No…" Hatch muttered. Jenny was his best friend of the moment. It was already hard for him to make friends anyway, much less keep them. He had gotten lucky with Jenny; she was obsessive enough to hold up their friendship from both sides.
"Then what was it? You're always so secretive. If we're gonna be friends you have to tell me stuff." She pushed his arm.
"I spent the weekend at Lucas' place." Hatch put in.
"Lucas? Who's that?"
"My mom's sperm donor." His head was rested on the shuttle window as he spoke.
"I guess you don't think too highly of him, huh?"
"Erica's more of a father to me than him…"
"Ouch." Jenny bit her lip. The shuttle stopped and the kids got off. It was a pretty big school, but word still spread fast.
"Yo Wesley. Heard you busted outta jail. Way to go, man!" Some random guy hit his fist on Hatch's arm as he walked by.
"You were in jail!? What happened?!"
"Nothing." Hatch picked up his labtop computer from a hook on the wall with his name under it. Jenny picked hers up a few steps down. They had class soon, but Jenny wasn't about to let this go.
"We're talking about it at lunch. K?" Jenny yelled as she joined the other females while the segregated to their gender specific classrooms.
For once Hatch couldn't concentrate on his work. That mornings events had struck a nerve.
"Are you sure about this?" Hatch asked as Lucas sat at the computer in the public coffee house.
"Of course I am." Lucas answered as a list of binary scrolled up the screen. "All I have to do is hack into the database and you'll be scot-free. Nobody saw you right?"
"No, I don't think so…" Hatch looked nervously about the coffee house.
"Don't look so guilty, you'll attract attention." Lucas grinned. "Are you paying attention Wesley?"
"What?" Hatch blinked a few times. His professor was standing over him. "I said, are you paying attention?"
"Uh, yeah…" Hatch swallowed.
"Then why don't you turn your labtop on and bring up your homework assignment?" He opened Hatch's computer for him.
"Right. Sorry sir." Hatch could hear some snickers from the class as he pushed the red button on the side.