The Station Chronicles: Martin Advance (1/6)
by Mary Brick
CHAPTER 1
(Present)
Morgan Martin couldn't sleep and he only had himself to blame.
"Am I crazy?' he thought. "I must be. That's the only explanation I can think of. I have absolutely taken full leave of my senses.'
With a groan of frustration, Morgan pulled the covers up around his neck and closed his eyes. Noises he had never been aware of before taunted him...the hum of the heating unit, footsteps waxing and waning as unknown people walked up and down the hall, even the steady breathing of his wife lying beside him. Morgan's eyes popped open. "This is ridiculous. I don't know why I'm even trying.' Throwing off his covers, Morgan eased himself out of bed. With a soft, melodic sigh, Bess rolled over and fell back into a deep sleep. Morgan watched her for a moment, a look of envy briefly crossing his face. Then his features softened into a look of pure love and wonderment that most people who knew him would be surprised to see. But then, most people didn't know the Morgan that Bess Martin knew. Morgan reached down and moved a soft curl away from his wife's face. "I'm doing this for us, Bess. I hope it's worth it," he whispered into the darkness.
Stealing a final glance at his beautiful wife, Morgan put on his robe and walked into the living room. Turning on the overhead light, the stark emptiness of the room once again reminded him of why he couldn't sleep. The walls were bare; the tabletops devoid of any personal belongings. A few traveling bags were stacked neatly by the front door. Morgan wearily eased himself into a chair. His mind started to wander, back in time, trying to place the exact moment where his journey began. The journey that had led him to this night of unrest.
***
(20 years ago)
"Morgan Martin, I did not raise my son to become some two-bit hustler without an ounce of self-respect."
From the depths of the chair in which he sat, 14-year-old Morgan dared to look up at the stern face of the man towering over him. "But, Dad, Mr. Landing says I have a gift. That I could really make a success of this."
"Don't take that tone of voice with me, boy!" Preston Martin bellowed. "I'll be the one who tells you what will and will not make you successful. And I am telling you right now, the frustrated pipe-dreams of some washed up, has-been music teacher won't make you successful."
Morgan lowered his head into his hands to hide the tears of frustration that threatened to spill over. He knew it would never do for his father to see him cry.
Preston Martin was a self-made man. Having successfully worked off the last of his family's passage-up debt, he was firm in his belief that only hard, common sense work made a man successful. He once had great hopes for his only son, a son who did nothing but disappoint him. Where Preston was a powerfully-built man with muscles that told of his early years of manual labor, Morgan was a slight boy with an almost delicate constitution that never ceased to irritate his father. Where Preston had no time for what he considered frivolous pursuits, Morgan seemed only to take his music, especially his drums, seriously. Only Morgan's interest in computers gave Preston any hope about his son's future. A future he was determined would lead to riches and power Preston Martin saw everyone else receiving. Riches and power that he felt the Martin family deserved. And there was only one way a third-generation immigrant's son could get those riches and power—by becoming a high-ranking official in the service of station government.
"Morgan, after you graduate, you are going to enter the Center for Civil Service Training."
Morgan's head shot up and he stared at his father with eyes full of dismay. "But, Dad..."
"And I will tolerate no arguments. This discussion is closed." With a final glare of disgust at his defeated son, Preston turned and left the room.
"But, Dad..." Morgan said to the empty space where his father's presence still lingered. Getting up from his chair, Morgan looked around the room where he had endured many such "discussions'. His eyes rested on a holopic of his parents taken five years ago. "Why aren't you here to help me?" he wailed. With tears of frustration streaming down his face, Morgan fled to his bedroom, the only place that offered any sanctuary from his father's disappointment and demands. In the quiet of his hide-away, Morgan loudly and violently took out his frustrations on the only drums he owned, the ones he created in virtual reality.
***
(Present)
Morgan shook his head to clear away the painful memory. He wished he had his VR gear now, but it was packed away. His hands tapped out a rhythm on the arms of the chair, but it didn't help. His mind started wandering again. Images of his childhood raced through his head. Try as he might, he couldn't get rid of them. He never liked to think about the childhood he lived. It always made him think about the childhood that might have been. The childhood where his mother had never left him.
***
(24 years ago)
Sylvia Martin had been Morgan's greatest ally, defending him against his tyrannical father. She was a strong woman, much like his father. But she was never hard; she understood her quiet, dreamy son in a way his father never could. She understood that Morgan never knew the reality of being poor, never knew the reality of working two or three jobs at a time in order to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. She felt that with their inherited debt paid and their new home outside of the quadrants, Morgan would be allowed to live the life he dreamed of. But that dream was shattered, suddenly and without warning...
Sylvia quietly opened the door and entered her son's bedroom. Switching on the light, she looked around the sparsely furnished room. The bed was neatly made. The desk was cleared of the schoolbooks that were scattered about each night as Morgan struggled with his homework. The walls were barren of the usual evidence of youth; posters of favorite sports teams or pictures of the holovid heroes that 10-year-olds so worshipped. The dresser top held only a few items and those were of a predominately utilitarian nature. But in the center, in a place of honor, was a holopic of their family. It was taken during one of the few family outings Preston Martin agreed to take. Standing at the entrance of the Station 8 Holographic Zoo was the Martin family; father in the background standing ramrod straight and stern-faced, son in the foreground smiling shyly, and mother between them, smiling for the camera yet with a protective hand on her son's shoulder. Sylvia looked at that picture for a long time, her gaze alternating between her husband's face and her son's.
She remembered that day well. Such family outings were unusual, and Morgan had been especially excited about this one. He could scarcely contain his exuberance as they toured the zoo. Racing from one exhibit to the next, Morgan barely listened as his father tried to lecture him about the extinct animals they were seeing. Finally, Morgan's inattention took its toll on his father. Preston grabbed him by the arm and shook him hard.
"If you're not going to listen to me and learn something, there's no point in us staying any longer!" he hollered at his son. Morgan froze instantly, his eyes wide with fear.
Sylvia placed a restraining hand on her husband's arm. "Preston," she said calmly. "Not in public."
Morgan's father released him immediately but the rebuke had served its purpose. They completed the tour, but it was more like a school lesson than a family outing. Sylvia tried to make the rest of the day more fun, but she knew that Morgan's heart wasn't in it anymore. As they reached the end of the exhibition hall, they ran into the family of one of Morgan's schoolmates. Stopping to say hello, Sylvia watched her son. His looked of envy was apparent as he watched how easily the other boy interacted with his father. His friend's mother offered to take their picture. The day had been less than perfect and Sylvia couldn't understand why Morgan valued the picture so much to put it in such a prominent place in his room. What she didn't know was that the picture represented the sum total of his life, the stern father he tried so desperately to please and the patient mother he found so easy to love.
"Oh, Morgan," Sylvia whispered into the silence of the dreary room. "How can I tell you what you need to know? And how will you get along when I'm gone?"
"Mom, I'm home!" Morgan's greeting came from the front hall. "Can I have something to eat? I'm starved!"
Sylvia composed herself and went to join her son in the kitchen. "Hi, sweetie, how was your day?" she said as she fixed him his favorite after-school snack.
"Oh, you know, same ol' thing," was Morgan's reply as he seated himself at the kitchen table. Sylvia placed a plate of cookies and a glass of juice in front of Morgan and sat across from him, listening to her son ramble on about his day. Her mind wandered as she listened, barely conscious of his words as she tried to figure out how to tell him that the world he knew was about to end.
"Mom? Aren't you listening? What's wrong?"
Sylvia turned to look at Morgan. Her eyes welled up with tears as she reached across the table and gently stroked his face.
"Honey, we need to talk." Sylvia took Morgan's hands in hers. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she looked at her son. Quickly and candidly, yet as gently as she could, she told Morgan the secret she'd been keeping for the past six months.
"NO!" Morgan cried out. "No, you can't die!" He leapt from his chair and wrapped his arms in a vise-like grip around his mother. Burying his head in her shoulder, great sobs burst forth from deep within him. Sylvia wrapped her arms around her son and gently rocked him until the worst of his crying had subsided.
They talked for hours that afternoon and were virtually inseparable for the remaining three months of Sylvia's life. Enduring his own grief as stoically as he did everything else, Preston Martin never offered his son any public displays of comfort or solace. Without his mother's gentle guidance and quiet intervention, Morgan's life soon became an uphill battle to make his father proud of him. It was a battle he would never win.
***
(Present)
Morgan wiped a tear from his cheek. He didn't want to think about his parents anymore. He tried to turn his thoughts to something more pleasant, but certain other memories kept getting in the way. Memories of his school years. Memories of how he tried to please his father while trying to please himself, too. Memories of how he finally gave up his personal dreams and worked only to please his father.
***
(14 years ago)
While his mother was alive, Morgan's life was bearable. But her sudden illness and death left Morgan bereft of the one person that stood between his dreams and his father's expectations. With no-one to stand in his way, Preston Martin was determined to mold his son into the man he felt he should be. A driven man with only one goal to achieve great wealth and even greater power.
And so, upon graduation, Morgan found himself enrolled in the Center for Civil Service Training. Determined to make his father proud and unwilling to taint his mother's memory, Morgan drove himself hard. He studied constantly, rarely taking time for personal pursuits. He all but alienated everyone in his class, but it didn't matter. He was determined to become a rich and powerful man. A man his father would be proud of...
The man standing behind the lectern tapped the stack of data tapes in front of him slowly and repeatedly with his index finger.
"These reports are the most pathetic renderings of logical thought and argument I have ever seen in my 20 years of teaching," he announced.
The faces of the 35 students sitting before the teacher showed varying degrees of resignation. "Station Law in the 22nd Century" was one of the most difficult and complex courses offered at the Center. It was the make or break course for any student wishing a serious career in government service. And Oscar Hansen was the one instructor you didn't want to get for this class. He was a stickler for detail and nothing escaped his notice.
"Except for one."
One student's face lit up while the remaining 34 silently wished him dead.
The instructor took the top tape from the pile and handed it to the student sitting front row center.
"Mr. Martin," he said, "This report is the one shining example of what I've been trying to teach all semester. Well done."
Taking the tape, Morgan fairly beamed. "Thank you, Mr. Hansen, sir, thank you very much."
"As for the rest of you, I suggest you reread the assignment and try again. Now, on to Chapter 17."
When class was over, Morgan packed up his belongings and watched his fellow students leave the room. They left in groups of three or four, talking about the lesson they just had or commiserating over their failed reports. No-one waited for him. He walked out alone.
Morgan headed for the library. His head was down as he intently read the readout from the data recorder he always carried with him. He didn't see the group of students stopped at the door until he literally ran into them.
"Hey, Martin, watch where you're going," Anthony Harris complained. He was in Morgan's law class.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you." Morgan moved to go into the building.
Harris blocked the entrance. "Yeah? And just where do you think you're going?"
Morgan sighed. This wasn't the first time this had happened. He had lived through this kind of treatment since his first day of school. He had hoped the taunting would stop when he got to the Center. He'd hoped that the students would be more mature and leave him alone. But they didn't. Bullies wanted to get into government service, too, it seemed.
"I just want to get into the library so I can study," Morgan said.
"So you can write some more of those, uh, *shining* reports of *logical thought*?" Harris taunted, punctuating each word with a shove to Morgan's shoulder, forcing him back down the walkway.
"Yeah, I suppose so. Can I go in now?" Morgan glanced around at the other students, his eyes pleading for some help. He got nothing but glares of animosity in return.
"Nah, I don't think so," Harris replied.
Morgan looked at the faces of his fellow students. He suddenly understood that he would never get any help from them. He was on his own and always would be.
"Okay, fine. Don't let me in. But you know what? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where I study. And do you know why it doesn't matter? I'll tell you why. It doesn't matter because I can write my *shining* reports of *logical thought* anywhere. And do you know what else? You never will. You will always be all brawn and no brains struggling to survive at Level One when I'm sitting fat and sassy at Level Six probably trying to decide whether you should keep your puny, little job or not. So I'd have a little more respect if I were you. Now, get out of my way!"
With that, Morgan pushed past the stunned group of students and entered the library. He quickly entered the elevator and went to the sixth floor study center. Entering a private study room, he fell into the nearest chair and started shaking all over.
"Morgan Martin, I don't believe you just did that," he mumbled to himself. "But, damn, it felt good!"
Morgan's life started anew that day. He put aside the dreams he had had as a child and focused only on the career path chosen for him by his father. It may not have been his first choice, but he rationalized it in his mind until he believed it was. He worked hard in every class and studied until the early morning hours. It was a constant struggle. He wasn't studious by nature and many of the classes bored him. But he persevered and when he graduated, he was in the top 10 percent of his class. Therefore, it came as a bitter blow to Morgan when he received his first government assignment. Station Law was his field of choice, but the government had decreed that he could better serve as a Level One Computer Associate.
Morgan Martin was at the bottom again.
***
(Present)
Morgan stood and turned off the light. Determined to get some sleep, he headed back to the bedroom. In the darkness, he stumbled over the packed suitcases in the hallway. "Damn it, that hurts!" he swore. The bags reminded him of what was going to happen tomorrow. Realizing that sleep was still beyond his grasp, he headed for the kitchen to get something to eat. He got halfway there before he remembered that it was empty. Everything he and Bess couldn't take with them was either sold or given away. "Oh, great. Now what do I do?' he thought. He considered waking Bess so they could talk, but decided against it. "At least one of us should get a good night's sleep. Besides, I'll be getting plenty of sleep soon enough.' He wandered back into the living room. A sudden feeling of claustrophobia struck him and he knew he had to get out of the unit for a while. After quickly changing into street clothes, Morgan quietly walked out the front door.
END OF CHAPTER 1
Story Notes:
"The Station Chronicles: Martin Advance" is a short story based on the Amblin/Universal television production "Earth 2". All characters, names, and trademarks are the copyrighted property of Amblin/Universal. This story, copyright 1997, is my own creation and is not affiliated with Amblin/Universal.
Any and all feedback is welcome.
Please do not post, publish, or include this story on a website without my permission. Thank you.
Any and all feedback is welcome.
Please do not post, publish, or include this story on a website without my permission. Thank you.