Post by Otto on May 8, 2010 11:18:15 GMT -6
Writing's an art, so I figured this was as good a place as any to put up my short stories and stuff.
Disclaimers: Violence, some profanity, and liberal amounts of sarcasm. And the extremely, extremely slight possibility that I might offend someone (who isn't on WS, but whom I met on the Internet so there is a chance, however unlikely, that she'll find this) for sneering at her precious little Mary-Sue.
Continuum
When the rebels toppled the old regime, crowds flooded the streets and cheered. Their noble, brave, charismatic leader killed the corrupt dictator with her own hands and proclaimed a new era, free from the rule of the greedy, indulgent, antiquated government. The celebration lasted for three full days. It would have lasted far longer if the rebel leader, the one who’d instigated the revolution and worked tirelessly towards its fruition, had not encouraged the people to return to their lives, that there would be plenty of cause for celebration later.
In retrospect, I don’t know why I ever believed that bullshit in the first place. Sure, that’s what we were told by the authorities, by our newspapers and televisions and even our textbooks once the no-longer-rebels got a hold of them, but that I didn’t see it for the blatant propaganda it was still frustrates me. Then again, that was before I learned where to look to find history that hadn’t been rewritten for anyone’s convenience.
I don’t regret looking for it, and I don’t regret finding it. But since I couldn’t return to my blissfully ignorant life without feeling like I was acting the part of a half-witted cow who blithely chewed its cud in a field next to a slaughterhouse, I decided to just abandon my old life. It wasn’t a terribly difficult decision. No husband, not even a boyfriend, very few friends, and I barely ever talked to my father anyway, who probably wouldn’t even notice I’d disappeared until the following year. And even then, he’d just assume I changed my address and contact information without letting him know. Which I’ve done before. Besides, from all my searching I’d already gotten a foot in the city’s underworld. Might as well cross the metaphorical line at that point.
And that’s the reason why, in the God-forsaken hours of the morning, I’m not at home sleeping. Instead, I’m staked out in some dilapidated elevator shaft of an equally-dilapidated personal airship hangar in one of the nastiest districts of Toharon City. Just because I’m technically a criminal doesn’t mean I live in—or even frequent—the city’s most unattractive places. I prefer my tastefully-furnished apartment in the Southern district. I do have standards, as surprising as that may seem. Not that I, hands and legs wrapped around the cables of an old elevator, dressed in the drabbest clothing I could find, with a fine layer of dark grey dust settled in my hair, would be able to convince anyone of that right now.
A call at some unholy hour in the morning was not how I imagined I’d start my day. I was sorely tempted to fling the squealing, buzzing phone across the room, but I figured the caller most likely has something urgent to say. Either that, or he was a sadistic telemarketer. At any rate, neither possibility was going to put me in a good mood. Grumbling something rather rude about the caller’s mother, I picked up without even bothering to check the caller ID.
“Mmmfph. Wha’ d’you want?”
“Rise and shine. You’ve got work to do.” Do I now? Well, it looked like I wasn’t going to get any sympathy from—wait, who was this again? I squinted down at the glowing screen. It told me the call came from somewhere in Cambodia. The hell? I made a point not to always trust the thing because it was far too easy to get your hands on CID spoofing technology these days, but this was a bit ridiculous.
The caller, oblivious to my confusion, continued. “We’ve got a location on Kronos. I’m uploading the coordinates to your phone. EVI projects she’ll be there in one hour exactly, so you’d better get moving.”
It took a few moments for my sleep-addled mind to wrap itself around what he was saying. Kronos—the rebel leader they’ve been tracking for over a year, if I remember correctly. The constant yet elusive thorn in the side. I’d been getting updates about her movements for a while, but never anything definite. Nothing new had cropped up in the past couple of weeks. Until today. I felt my body start to wake up, the anticipation begin to take hold.
And remembering that I was getting paid for this provided more than enough incentive to get me out of bed. The coordinates flashed on the phone’s screen, which then displayed a satellite image of the city, with the building marked by a fine crosshair. “Got it. I can be there in…” I did some quick calculations in my head. “Thirty-five minutes.”
“That’ll give you just enough time. I’ll keep you updated.” The line went silent.
I definitely didn’t plan on fucking this one up, but it never hurt to have a back-up plan. It didn’t even have to be a particularly elaborate one. Just someone to haul my ass out of trouble if I need it.
“Call Aras, and send him the coordinates,” I instructed my phone as I threw on some more appropriate clothing. Something dark, plain, and comfortable that would keep me warm in the pre-dawn temperatures.
I heard ringing, and the sound of someone picking up. His greeting was even less coherent than mine was. “I feel your pain. Now get up, ‘cause the coordinates I just sent you is where Kronos is going to be in fifty-seven minutes, and you’re my backup.” Judging by the muffled curse and the sound of scrambling on the other end, he got the point. “I’ll forward you any updates I get,” I said, and hung up.
Most of my equipment was already set aside in a bag, for situations like these, when I didn’t have time to rummage through my apartment for everything I needed. I double-checked to make sure that the essentials were there: a crowbar (handier than you might think), what could easily be mistaken for a tranquilizer gun, and a small, securely-closed case containing ten darts that looked like they’d be, at most, effective against an earwig.
I don’t deny that guns are effective. You don’t have to know much more than which end to hold to get a job done. Still, you’d think that after centuries of rapidly-improving technology, they’d invent a firearm that was as easy to use yet made less of a spectacle. But no, it was still old-fashioned metal slugs. As far as sound went, a good silencer would have you covered, but there was still nothing you could do about the inevitable mess a successful hit would cause.
If it were attention I wanted, I’d become an actor. Or a politician, and get myself involved in a scandal. Suffice it to say that I prefer to be subtler. I’d be the first to tell you that discretion involves a lot more thought and preparation, but it pays off.
Poisons are a hassle to acquire, to be sure, but they’re incredible. And they’re so much classier than bullets. The toxin coating the tips of those darts originally came from some little, bright yellow frogs that have probably gone extinct by now, but since people have learned to synthesize the toxin I’m not too worried. I’ve never seen one of these frogs and probably never will. But I’ve seen what their poison can do, and that’s enough for me.
Too impatient to wait for the elevator, I took the stairs, two and three at a time, down to the parking garage. Call me old-fashioned, or whatever you will, but I don’t trust myself piloting one of those airships. I trust the other pilots even less. If most people can’t avoid crashing into each other on a more or less two-dimensional road, there is no way I’m going to feel safe when the drivers have to pay attention to traffic from above and below as well. So until people develop longer attention spans, quicker reflexes, and three hundred sixty degree vision, I’m sticking with my car.
As I sped through another red light, the buildings stretching far into the sky turned into blurs at the edges of my vision, I wondered how the rebels managed to evade EVI for so long. EVI: something Virtual Intelligence. Or it could be an acronym describing Evergreen Verdant Ingrates, for all I know and care. Whoever’s next in line is just going to rename her, anyway.
There are rumors zipping around like caffeine-high flies that EVI’s the one pulling the strings, with the state as its giant marionette. That we’re nothing more than pawns on a chessboard, pushed around by a twisted digital mind. That we’re all knowingly or unknowingly bowing to the whims of a convoluted sequence of ones and zeros.
And I say those are the ramblings of conspiracy theorists and paranoid minds. If our society were run by a machine built on cold, infallible logic, it would’ve weeded out all the useless people who seem to have made wasting space their lives’ sole purpose. Just last Tuesday I had the misfortune of crossing paths with some quack who followed me for an entire block and kept trying to convince me of the evils of my ways. Because I’m going to hell anyway, at least according to that guy—even he would’ve given me up as a lost cause had he known half the things I’d done—I left him with a bloody nose. He must’ve figured he’d gotten off easy, because he did stop following me. It was exceptionally satisfying, even if avoiding that particular street for a month or two was a bit of an inconvenience.
So no, I don’t believe that EVI’s the one calling the shots. She—and I say ‘she’ because, for whatever reason, everyone and their mother thinks of their cars and spaceships and technology as female—is more of a highly sophisticated monitoring system. The closest we’ve got to true AI, I hear. Sentient? Possibly. Overlord-dictator-mastermind? I doubt it.
Besides, the people currently at the top of the food chain are enjoying their power a bit too much to hand it off to a machine. EVI’s just a tool that helps them keep the power in the same hands. One of them identifies a problem. A threat to the establishment. EVI gathers the information, EVI follows up on the leads, EVI organizes the data into nice little charts and figures, and her operators discreetly get in touch with whoever they think will take care of their problem. The underworld’s not an uncommon place for them to look. Sending in one or two of us creates much less of a stir than sending in the military. We’re the ones who get our hands dirty; the military’s just there for show. Need a rabble-rouser taken care of? Carry on your business as normal while one of us slips in and disposes of him quietly.
I reached the hangar in record time, mostly because no-one cares how fast you drive or how many red lights you run when they aren’t around to see it. And if the traffic cameras caught me, EVI could conveniently get a bug in her system and misplace the footage.
Parking two blocks away, I swung my bag over my shoulder and traveled the rest of the distance on foot, examining the information and the blueprints of the building I’d received. The building was thought to be abandoned and had been scheduled for demolition a few months from now. The hangar itself was ten stories up, open on the side where the door had been taken down for scrap metal, and—ah. The elevator shaft would make an excellent hiding spot.
Getting in wasn’t terribly difficult. The lock on the front door was rusted through and broken. Evidently, someone had forced his way in before. I pushed the elevator’s up button, but no luck; understandably, the building had no power. Ten flights of stairs. Wonderful. Right next to the unworkable elevator, too. I’m sure some omniscient being was taunting me.
As I dashed up the steps, I fitted on an earpiece that would allow me to maintain constant contact with my backup. “Where are you?”
“The building across the street, eleventh floor. I’ve got a clear view of most of the hangar from here. Can’t see the part of the walkway along the back wall, though.”
“Mmkay. I’m camping out in the elevator shaft. Don’t go trigger-happy unless I’m having trouble, yeah? We’re not trying to make a mess.”
“I know.”
Once I reached the hangar, I stopped for half a minute to catch my breath. I took the opportunity to survey the surroundings. On the smaller side, meant for three aircrafts at most; a flat ceiling, thirty feet high, crisscrossed with support beams; a walkway fifteen feet above the floor, wrapping around the three walls; mostly open space, as you’d expect. On one side of the elevator, a ladder was affixed to the wall, leading up to a squarish door which undoubtedly led to the shaft. It was probably meant to be used when the elevator needed maintenance or repairs. I doubt the designers ever considered the purpose I had in mind.
Opening the doors a crack wasn’t too trying a task—I just threw my weight against the crowbar to pry them open. The groaning and creaking of old metal made me cringe inwardly, but no one was around to hear yet. No one who cared, at least.
Getting into the shaft was a bit more of a challenge. I couldn’t force the doors open wide enough for me to get through because I had no way of closing them again. So I had to use the ladder. The bottom rung was too high to reach, even with a running jump, but by carefully balancing on the stairs’ railing, I could just manage to grab hold. I then swung my legs up—and from there, it became a simple task of climbing a ladder. The door opened with a few sharp tugs. Crawling inside kicked up the dust that had lain undisturbed for years, and I covered my nose and mouth with a sleeve as the grey motes swirled around me. As I knelt on the platform jutting out a ways into the shaft, I looked down. The elevator was suspended only a story below, on the level below the walkway. It didn’t really matter where the elevator was, but it was nice to know that I if I lost my grip I wouldn’t break all of my bones at once.
Ten more minutes, according to EVI’s predictions. After loading the tranquilizer gun with the deceptively small darts, I stuck it back into its holster. Reaching out, I grabbed hold of one of the cables, swung off the platform, and wrapped my legs around the cable.
“Ready to kick some Titan ass?” I asked.
A wry chuckle. “Ready.”
I crawled down to the faint sliver of light below, peered out through the crack, and waited.
And this woman, Kronos?
On a rather tangential note, I understand the appeal of impressive, shock-and-awe codenames, but really, someone ought to have told her that the mythological Titan’s name she chose belonged to one of the wrong gender. Who was also a tyrant who ate his children. And was then overthrown by said children. She thinks her name is inspiring. I think it’s ironically appropriate. I’d have thought it prophetic had I not been sure I’d succeed today. Moral of the story: Do your research.
But I digress.
I don’t believe her for a moment when she says she’ll bring about a new era of peace and freedom. She and her rebellion have already killed plenty of people who’ve gotten in their way. They’re not above torture, either. I’ve got an acquaintance who’s investigated their abandoned hideouts, and he’s told me what he’s seen. I believe him, because I’ve known him for seven years—I say ‘acquaintance’ because I don’t like him enough to consider him a friend—and I know he isn’t even remotely creative enough to make shit like that up.
I know the life I chose was supposed to have made me numb to death, but thinking about what these self-proclaimed freedom fighters did to ostensibly get information out of people still sends chills up my spine. What makes them think that’s how it works, anyway? Interrogations don’t work that way. They’ve probably watched one too many bad TV shows. Or whatever rebels do in their spare time, when they’re not plotting the downfall of the Evil Empire.
Oh, I’m sorry. I meant the corrupt cesspool we call a government whose sole purpose is to make the citizens’ lives miserable and to collect taxes. Wait, never mind, those two are pretty much the same thing.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not defending them. Life could be better. Life could always be better. But if anyone bothered to dig a little deeper, they’ll know why I’m not willing to put my faith in any group of people who boldly sweep in and proclaim themselves a rebellion.
Slap the title ‘rebels’ on a group of people, and it automatically turns them into Big Damn Heroes. Call yourselves rebels, and before long you’ll have a trail of doe-eyed romantics obsessed with the idea of revolution at your beck and call. Rebels can do no wrong, of course, because all that they do is in the name of Justice and Freedom and The People and whatever else sounds grand and wonderful enough to warrant capitalization on their tawdry fliers and posters. Doesn’t matter what damage they do, whom they kill, or how many they kill or torture in the name of their noble cause. They’re the heroes of the story, so whatever they do must be right.
I believed that until I realized that revolution didn’t really change anything. For all her talk and her grand promises, the former rebel leader was no better than the previous guy. What’s more is that he’d been the leader of an earlier rebellion that had ousted the previous government, and that his promises had been just as lofty, and look where that had gotten us. As some author whose name eludes me once wrote, they’re called revolutions because they come around again. And again.
And again.
A fluctuating magnetic hum interrupted my musings. The dark bulk of an airship loomed at the hangar’s entrance, glided in, and settled down with a muffled thud. I heard a whine of opening doors and began to count the shapes descending from the craft. Each of them had heavy-looking bags slung over their shoulders, but whatever was in those bags and whatever they were planning to do with them was irrelevant to me, besides the fact that the weight would slow them down.
“I see four, plus the pilot, so five,” I muttered just before the engines went quiet. All right, time to get down to business. Which one was Kronos? If anything, she was going down first. I made sure to memorize the photos EVI had on file, but I’m not one of those freaky little lemur-things with eyes the size of my brain, so it was a bit difficult identify faces in the darkness. I could, however, tell that among them, two of them were women. I could just take those two out first.
Drawing my gun from its holster, I waited until they were some ways away from the airship. I didn’t want them all scrambling to take off at the first sign of trouble. Or at least, I didn’t want them to take off until after they were pretty much the walking dead.
I aimed at the first woman, and pulled the trigger. She jumped like a startled doe, dropping her bags with a clatter. I aimed again—
—and then everything went to hell.
All I knew was that a shadow suddenly fell over the elevator doors. I didn’t have to think twice before I let go of the cable, a split second before I would’ve come face-to-face—rather, face-to-muzzle—with a pistol shoved between the doors. The sound of the gunshot rang through the shaft, ringing in my ears and reverberating in my skull as I fell.
I hit the top of the elevator—and with a sickening lurch, it gave way.
I must’ve blacked out for a minute or two, because the next thing I knew, I was being manhandled out of the elevator. There was an inarticulate buzzing in my one ear, but I couldn’t brush it away; they had me by the arms. Through my pain-addled brain, I found myself thinking that I apparently wasn’t the only person who brought a crowbar around with her.
I bit back a cry of pain as they forced me to my knees. So maybe I didn’t break all the bones in my body, but the fall still must’ve managed to mess me up pretty badly. At least the buzzing in my ear had stopped. Forcing back the tears threatening to well over, I scowled up at the figure standing over me. The face from EVI’s files scowled down at me.
Motherf—of course I’d get the wrong one.
I could predict what was going to happen next. They were going to ask who sent me (as if anyone with half a brain couldn’t guess) smack me around a couple of times, smack me around a few more times for good measure, then shoot me. Standard procedure.
I was not looking forward to this.
“Who are you working for?” Am I good, or what?
I blurted the first name that came to my head. “Jean Valjean.”
I got the back end of a pistol slammed into my jaw for that one.
“How did you find us?”
Okay, so the previous question was just an excuse to hit me. Black spots tumbling across my vision, I said something vulgar about Kronos’ grandmother. She appeared to take it rather personally, because I got clouted across the face again for my trouble. I could taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth.
“Stop wasting our time. How much do they know about us?” She raised her hand, not to hit me again, but to aim the weapon between my eyes.
Time. I needed time. “What’ll you do if I don’t tell you? Leave me like that poor bastard back at the Eastern district a few months ago? Tell me, why would I want people who’re willing to do shit like that taking ch—”
She didn’t shoot me, but the impact this time left me seeing black for more than a few seconds. I’d evidently struck a sore spot. Despite the fact that I was currently at the mercy of a woman who was very eager to kill me by this point, I allowed myself to feel a hint of smug satisfaction. I hadn’t felt particularly remorseful at the thought of disposing of these people in the first place; now, I felt even less so.
“Don’t talk as if you know—”
A long-awaited crack pierced through the air. Kronos jerked violently, then fell.
I felt the hands gripping my arms loosen their hold. Every nerve of my body was screaming at me to run as if a Doberman pinscher belonging to the devil himself were after me. And I would’ve, had the rational part my brain not taken over and thrown me flat on the floor. Three additional cracks came in quick succession, followed by three heavy thumps. I lifted my head just in time to see the last rebel drop like the fly he was.
“Took you long enough. Tell me, were you trying to scare the shit out of me?” I glared in the general direction of the building across the street.
“Perhaps. Or I might’ve been waiting for all of them to come into my line of sight.”
I shook my head—or tried to, as I immediately stopped when it made me feel like someone was driving nails into the inside of my skull. “The pilot, too?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for warning me about the sixth guy.” I winced as I forced myself to get to my feet.
“I can’t see part of the walkway, remember? Or the stairs.”
Damn it, that was right. They’d probably had someone coming up the stairs to meet them. I felt somewhat vindicated—at least I knew I could still count to five—if still irked that I hadn’t thought of this possibility. Swaying unsteadily, I managed to limp over to the bags, scattered haphazardly where the rebels had dropped them in the commotion. Unzipping the nearest one, I took a quick look inside.
“Putty explosives. Damn. The media’s going to have a field day. We deserve a bonus.” I looked around. The sight wasn’t very pleasant. “Though our bonus will probably be used to clean up the mess you made.”
“No need to shower me with gratitude.”
“I keep you modest. Admit it.”
“Of course. I’ll be over there in a few minutes. You don’t look like you want to do ten flights of stairs by yourself.”
My laughter was cut short by the throbbing headache it created. “What clued you in?”
A sigh. “Do you really want to know how you look?”
“…No, I really don’t. Probably like I ran face-first into one too many brick walls, and then kept doing it.”
“Something like that.”
“Thanks.”
“Mm-hm.”
“No, I mean it. Thanks.” I didn’t even want to think about what might’ve happened if I hadn’t asked him to come.
It was gradually beginning to lighten outside, but dawn was still a ways off. We’d get back before sunrise, and most of Toharon wouldn’t even know we’d ever left. I could’ve been among that number—at home, sleeping peacefully, unbloodied and unbruised. I could’ve continued to sit around and waited for other people tell me what to do with my life, watched power change hands as dispassionately as I watch TV infomercials, and waited for some new people to tell me what to do.
Or I could be here, in the midst of it all, doing anything but idly twiddling my thumbs.
Next time, they won’t even know what hit them.
Disclaimers: Violence, some profanity, and liberal amounts of sarcasm. And the extremely, extremely slight possibility that I might offend someone (who isn't on WS, but whom I met on the Internet so there is a chance, however unlikely, that she'll find this) for sneering at her precious little Mary-Sue.
Continuum
When the rebels toppled the old regime, crowds flooded the streets and cheered. Their noble, brave, charismatic leader killed the corrupt dictator with her own hands and proclaimed a new era, free from the rule of the greedy, indulgent, antiquated government. The celebration lasted for three full days. It would have lasted far longer if the rebel leader, the one who’d instigated the revolution and worked tirelessly towards its fruition, had not encouraged the people to return to their lives, that there would be plenty of cause for celebration later.
In retrospect, I don’t know why I ever believed that bullshit in the first place. Sure, that’s what we were told by the authorities, by our newspapers and televisions and even our textbooks once the no-longer-rebels got a hold of them, but that I didn’t see it for the blatant propaganda it was still frustrates me. Then again, that was before I learned where to look to find history that hadn’t been rewritten for anyone’s convenience.
I don’t regret looking for it, and I don’t regret finding it. But since I couldn’t return to my blissfully ignorant life without feeling like I was acting the part of a half-witted cow who blithely chewed its cud in a field next to a slaughterhouse, I decided to just abandon my old life. It wasn’t a terribly difficult decision. No husband, not even a boyfriend, very few friends, and I barely ever talked to my father anyway, who probably wouldn’t even notice I’d disappeared until the following year. And even then, he’d just assume I changed my address and contact information without letting him know. Which I’ve done before. Besides, from all my searching I’d already gotten a foot in the city’s underworld. Might as well cross the metaphorical line at that point.
And that’s the reason why, in the God-forsaken hours of the morning, I’m not at home sleeping. Instead, I’m staked out in some dilapidated elevator shaft of an equally-dilapidated personal airship hangar in one of the nastiest districts of Toharon City. Just because I’m technically a criminal doesn’t mean I live in—or even frequent—the city’s most unattractive places. I prefer my tastefully-furnished apartment in the Southern district. I do have standards, as surprising as that may seem. Not that I, hands and legs wrapped around the cables of an old elevator, dressed in the drabbest clothing I could find, with a fine layer of dark grey dust settled in my hair, would be able to convince anyone of that right now.
***
A call at some unholy hour in the morning was not how I imagined I’d start my day. I was sorely tempted to fling the squealing, buzzing phone across the room, but I figured the caller most likely has something urgent to say. Either that, or he was a sadistic telemarketer. At any rate, neither possibility was going to put me in a good mood. Grumbling something rather rude about the caller’s mother, I picked up without even bothering to check the caller ID.
“Mmmfph. Wha’ d’you want?”
“Rise and shine. You’ve got work to do.” Do I now? Well, it looked like I wasn’t going to get any sympathy from—wait, who was this again? I squinted down at the glowing screen. It told me the call came from somewhere in Cambodia. The hell? I made a point not to always trust the thing because it was far too easy to get your hands on CID spoofing technology these days, but this was a bit ridiculous.
The caller, oblivious to my confusion, continued. “We’ve got a location on Kronos. I’m uploading the coordinates to your phone. EVI projects she’ll be there in one hour exactly, so you’d better get moving.”
It took a few moments for my sleep-addled mind to wrap itself around what he was saying. Kronos—the rebel leader they’ve been tracking for over a year, if I remember correctly. The constant yet elusive thorn in the side. I’d been getting updates about her movements for a while, but never anything definite. Nothing new had cropped up in the past couple of weeks. Until today. I felt my body start to wake up, the anticipation begin to take hold.
And remembering that I was getting paid for this provided more than enough incentive to get me out of bed. The coordinates flashed on the phone’s screen, which then displayed a satellite image of the city, with the building marked by a fine crosshair. “Got it. I can be there in…” I did some quick calculations in my head. “Thirty-five minutes.”
“That’ll give you just enough time. I’ll keep you updated.” The line went silent.
I definitely didn’t plan on fucking this one up, but it never hurt to have a back-up plan. It didn’t even have to be a particularly elaborate one. Just someone to haul my ass out of trouble if I need it.
“Call Aras, and send him the coordinates,” I instructed my phone as I threw on some more appropriate clothing. Something dark, plain, and comfortable that would keep me warm in the pre-dawn temperatures.
I heard ringing, and the sound of someone picking up. His greeting was even less coherent than mine was. “I feel your pain. Now get up, ‘cause the coordinates I just sent you is where Kronos is going to be in fifty-seven minutes, and you’re my backup.” Judging by the muffled curse and the sound of scrambling on the other end, he got the point. “I’ll forward you any updates I get,” I said, and hung up.
Most of my equipment was already set aside in a bag, for situations like these, when I didn’t have time to rummage through my apartment for everything I needed. I double-checked to make sure that the essentials were there: a crowbar (handier than you might think), what could easily be mistaken for a tranquilizer gun, and a small, securely-closed case containing ten darts that looked like they’d be, at most, effective against an earwig.
I don’t deny that guns are effective. You don’t have to know much more than which end to hold to get a job done. Still, you’d think that after centuries of rapidly-improving technology, they’d invent a firearm that was as easy to use yet made less of a spectacle. But no, it was still old-fashioned metal slugs. As far as sound went, a good silencer would have you covered, but there was still nothing you could do about the inevitable mess a successful hit would cause.
If it were attention I wanted, I’d become an actor. Or a politician, and get myself involved in a scandal. Suffice it to say that I prefer to be subtler. I’d be the first to tell you that discretion involves a lot more thought and preparation, but it pays off.
Poisons are a hassle to acquire, to be sure, but they’re incredible. And they’re so much classier than bullets. The toxin coating the tips of those darts originally came from some little, bright yellow frogs that have probably gone extinct by now, but since people have learned to synthesize the toxin I’m not too worried. I’ve never seen one of these frogs and probably never will. But I’ve seen what their poison can do, and that’s enough for me.
Too impatient to wait for the elevator, I took the stairs, two and three at a time, down to the parking garage. Call me old-fashioned, or whatever you will, but I don’t trust myself piloting one of those airships. I trust the other pilots even less. If most people can’t avoid crashing into each other on a more or less two-dimensional road, there is no way I’m going to feel safe when the drivers have to pay attention to traffic from above and below as well. So until people develop longer attention spans, quicker reflexes, and three hundred sixty degree vision, I’m sticking with my car.
***
As I sped through another red light, the buildings stretching far into the sky turned into blurs at the edges of my vision, I wondered how the rebels managed to evade EVI for so long. EVI: something Virtual Intelligence. Or it could be an acronym describing Evergreen Verdant Ingrates, for all I know and care. Whoever’s next in line is just going to rename her, anyway.
There are rumors zipping around like caffeine-high flies that EVI’s the one pulling the strings, with the state as its giant marionette. That we’re nothing more than pawns on a chessboard, pushed around by a twisted digital mind. That we’re all knowingly or unknowingly bowing to the whims of a convoluted sequence of ones and zeros.
And I say those are the ramblings of conspiracy theorists and paranoid minds. If our society were run by a machine built on cold, infallible logic, it would’ve weeded out all the useless people who seem to have made wasting space their lives’ sole purpose. Just last Tuesday I had the misfortune of crossing paths with some quack who followed me for an entire block and kept trying to convince me of the evils of my ways. Because I’m going to hell anyway, at least according to that guy—even he would’ve given me up as a lost cause had he known half the things I’d done—I left him with a bloody nose. He must’ve figured he’d gotten off easy, because he did stop following me. It was exceptionally satisfying, even if avoiding that particular street for a month or two was a bit of an inconvenience.
So no, I don’t believe that EVI’s the one calling the shots. She—and I say ‘she’ because, for whatever reason, everyone and their mother thinks of their cars and spaceships and technology as female—is more of a highly sophisticated monitoring system. The closest we’ve got to true AI, I hear. Sentient? Possibly. Overlord-dictator-mastermind? I doubt it.
Besides, the people currently at the top of the food chain are enjoying their power a bit too much to hand it off to a machine. EVI’s just a tool that helps them keep the power in the same hands. One of them identifies a problem. A threat to the establishment. EVI gathers the information, EVI follows up on the leads, EVI organizes the data into nice little charts and figures, and her operators discreetly get in touch with whoever they think will take care of their problem. The underworld’s not an uncommon place for them to look. Sending in one or two of us creates much less of a stir than sending in the military. We’re the ones who get our hands dirty; the military’s just there for show. Need a rabble-rouser taken care of? Carry on your business as normal while one of us slips in and disposes of him quietly.
I reached the hangar in record time, mostly because no-one cares how fast you drive or how many red lights you run when they aren’t around to see it. And if the traffic cameras caught me, EVI could conveniently get a bug in her system and misplace the footage.
Parking two blocks away, I swung my bag over my shoulder and traveled the rest of the distance on foot, examining the information and the blueprints of the building I’d received. The building was thought to be abandoned and had been scheduled for demolition a few months from now. The hangar itself was ten stories up, open on the side where the door had been taken down for scrap metal, and—ah. The elevator shaft would make an excellent hiding spot.
Getting in wasn’t terribly difficult. The lock on the front door was rusted through and broken. Evidently, someone had forced his way in before. I pushed the elevator’s up button, but no luck; understandably, the building had no power. Ten flights of stairs. Wonderful. Right next to the unworkable elevator, too. I’m sure some omniscient being was taunting me.
As I dashed up the steps, I fitted on an earpiece that would allow me to maintain constant contact with my backup. “Where are you?”
“The building across the street, eleventh floor. I’ve got a clear view of most of the hangar from here. Can’t see the part of the walkway along the back wall, though.”
“Mmkay. I’m camping out in the elevator shaft. Don’t go trigger-happy unless I’m having trouble, yeah? We’re not trying to make a mess.”
“I know.”
Once I reached the hangar, I stopped for half a minute to catch my breath. I took the opportunity to survey the surroundings. On the smaller side, meant for three aircrafts at most; a flat ceiling, thirty feet high, crisscrossed with support beams; a walkway fifteen feet above the floor, wrapping around the three walls; mostly open space, as you’d expect. On one side of the elevator, a ladder was affixed to the wall, leading up to a squarish door which undoubtedly led to the shaft. It was probably meant to be used when the elevator needed maintenance or repairs. I doubt the designers ever considered the purpose I had in mind.
Opening the doors a crack wasn’t too trying a task—I just threw my weight against the crowbar to pry them open. The groaning and creaking of old metal made me cringe inwardly, but no one was around to hear yet. No one who cared, at least.
Getting into the shaft was a bit more of a challenge. I couldn’t force the doors open wide enough for me to get through because I had no way of closing them again. So I had to use the ladder. The bottom rung was too high to reach, even with a running jump, but by carefully balancing on the stairs’ railing, I could just manage to grab hold. I then swung my legs up—and from there, it became a simple task of climbing a ladder. The door opened with a few sharp tugs. Crawling inside kicked up the dust that had lain undisturbed for years, and I covered my nose and mouth with a sleeve as the grey motes swirled around me. As I knelt on the platform jutting out a ways into the shaft, I looked down. The elevator was suspended only a story below, on the level below the walkway. It didn’t really matter where the elevator was, but it was nice to know that I if I lost my grip I wouldn’t break all of my bones at once.
Ten more minutes, according to EVI’s predictions. After loading the tranquilizer gun with the deceptively small darts, I stuck it back into its holster. Reaching out, I grabbed hold of one of the cables, swung off the platform, and wrapped my legs around the cable.
“Ready to kick some Titan ass?” I asked.
A wry chuckle. “Ready.”
I crawled down to the faint sliver of light below, peered out through the crack, and waited.
***
And this woman, Kronos?
On a rather tangential note, I understand the appeal of impressive, shock-and-awe codenames, but really, someone ought to have told her that the mythological Titan’s name she chose belonged to one of the wrong gender. Who was also a tyrant who ate his children. And was then overthrown by said children. She thinks her name is inspiring. I think it’s ironically appropriate. I’d have thought it prophetic had I not been sure I’d succeed today. Moral of the story: Do your research.
But I digress.
I don’t believe her for a moment when she says she’ll bring about a new era of peace and freedom. She and her rebellion have already killed plenty of people who’ve gotten in their way. They’re not above torture, either. I’ve got an acquaintance who’s investigated their abandoned hideouts, and he’s told me what he’s seen. I believe him, because I’ve known him for seven years—I say ‘acquaintance’ because I don’t like him enough to consider him a friend—and I know he isn’t even remotely creative enough to make shit like that up.
I know the life I chose was supposed to have made me numb to death, but thinking about what these self-proclaimed freedom fighters did to ostensibly get information out of people still sends chills up my spine. What makes them think that’s how it works, anyway? Interrogations don’t work that way. They’ve probably watched one too many bad TV shows. Or whatever rebels do in their spare time, when they’re not plotting the downfall of the Evil Empire.
Oh, I’m sorry. I meant the corrupt cesspool we call a government whose sole purpose is to make the citizens’ lives miserable and to collect taxes. Wait, never mind, those two are pretty much the same thing.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not defending them. Life could be better. Life could always be better. But if anyone bothered to dig a little deeper, they’ll know why I’m not willing to put my faith in any group of people who boldly sweep in and proclaim themselves a rebellion.
Slap the title ‘rebels’ on a group of people, and it automatically turns them into Big Damn Heroes. Call yourselves rebels, and before long you’ll have a trail of doe-eyed romantics obsessed with the idea of revolution at your beck and call. Rebels can do no wrong, of course, because all that they do is in the name of Justice and Freedom and The People and whatever else sounds grand and wonderful enough to warrant capitalization on their tawdry fliers and posters. Doesn’t matter what damage they do, whom they kill, or how many they kill or torture in the name of their noble cause. They’re the heroes of the story, so whatever they do must be right.
I believed that until I realized that revolution didn’t really change anything. For all her talk and her grand promises, the former rebel leader was no better than the previous guy. What’s more is that he’d been the leader of an earlier rebellion that had ousted the previous government, and that his promises had been just as lofty, and look where that had gotten us. As some author whose name eludes me once wrote, they’re called revolutions because they come around again. And again.
And again.
***
A fluctuating magnetic hum interrupted my musings. The dark bulk of an airship loomed at the hangar’s entrance, glided in, and settled down with a muffled thud. I heard a whine of opening doors and began to count the shapes descending from the craft. Each of them had heavy-looking bags slung over their shoulders, but whatever was in those bags and whatever they were planning to do with them was irrelevant to me, besides the fact that the weight would slow them down.
“I see four, plus the pilot, so five,” I muttered just before the engines went quiet. All right, time to get down to business. Which one was Kronos? If anything, she was going down first. I made sure to memorize the photos EVI had on file, but I’m not one of those freaky little lemur-things with eyes the size of my brain, so it was a bit difficult identify faces in the darkness. I could, however, tell that among them, two of them were women. I could just take those two out first.
Drawing my gun from its holster, I waited until they were some ways away from the airship. I didn’t want them all scrambling to take off at the first sign of trouble. Or at least, I didn’t want them to take off until after they were pretty much the walking dead.
I aimed at the first woman, and pulled the trigger. She jumped like a startled doe, dropping her bags with a clatter. I aimed again—
—and then everything went to hell.
All I knew was that a shadow suddenly fell over the elevator doors. I didn’t have to think twice before I let go of the cable, a split second before I would’ve come face-to-face—rather, face-to-muzzle—with a pistol shoved between the doors. The sound of the gunshot rang through the shaft, ringing in my ears and reverberating in my skull as I fell.
I hit the top of the elevator—and with a sickening lurch, it gave way.
I must’ve blacked out for a minute or two, because the next thing I knew, I was being manhandled out of the elevator. There was an inarticulate buzzing in my one ear, but I couldn’t brush it away; they had me by the arms. Through my pain-addled brain, I found myself thinking that I apparently wasn’t the only person who brought a crowbar around with her.
I bit back a cry of pain as they forced me to my knees. So maybe I didn’t break all the bones in my body, but the fall still must’ve managed to mess me up pretty badly. At least the buzzing in my ear had stopped. Forcing back the tears threatening to well over, I scowled up at the figure standing over me. The face from EVI’s files scowled down at me.
Motherf—of course I’d get the wrong one.
I could predict what was going to happen next. They were going to ask who sent me (as if anyone with half a brain couldn’t guess) smack me around a couple of times, smack me around a few more times for good measure, then shoot me. Standard procedure.
I was not looking forward to this.
“Who are you working for?” Am I good, or what?
I blurted the first name that came to my head. “Jean Valjean.”
I got the back end of a pistol slammed into my jaw for that one.
“How did you find us?”
Okay, so the previous question was just an excuse to hit me. Black spots tumbling across my vision, I said something vulgar about Kronos’ grandmother. She appeared to take it rather personally, because I got clouted across the face again for my trouble. I could taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth.
“Stop wasting our time. How much do they know about us?” She raised her hand, not to hit me again, but to aim the weapon between my eyes.
Time. I needed time. “What’ll you do if I don’t tell you? Leave me like that poor bastard back at the Eastern district a few months ago? Tell me, why would I want people who’re willing to do shit like that taking ch—”
She didn’t shoot me, but the impact this time left me seeing black for more than a few seconds. I’d evidently struck a sore spot. Despite the fact that I was currently at the mercy of a woman who was very eager to kill me by this point, I allowed myself to feel a hint of smug satisfaction. I hadn’t felt particularly remorseful at the thought of disposing of these people in the first place; now, I felt even less so.
“Don’t talk as if you know—”
A long-awaited crack pierced through the air. Kronos jerked violently, then fell.
I felt the hands gripping my arms loosen their hold. Every nerve of my body was screaming at me to run as if a Doberman pinscher belonging to the devil himself were after me. And I would’ve, had the rational part my brain not taken over and thrown me flat on the floor. Three additional cracks came in quick succession, followed by three heavy thumps. I lifted my head just in time to see the last rebel drop like the fly he was.
“Took you long enough. Tell me, were you trying to scare the shit out of me?” I glared in the general direction of the building across the street.
“Perhaps. Or I might’ve been waiting for all of them to come into my line of sight.”
I shook my head—or tried to, as I immediately stopped when it made me feel like someone was driving nails into the inside of my skull. “The pilot, too?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for warning me about the sixth guy.” I winced as I forced myself to get to my feet.
“I can’t see part of the walkway, remember? Or the stairs.”
Damn it, that was right. They’d probably had someone coming up the stairs to meet them. I felt somewhat vindicated—at least I knew I could still count to five—if still irked that I hadn’t thought of this possibility. Swaying unsteadily, I managed to limp over to the bags, scattered haphazardly where the rebels had dropped them in the commotion. Unzipping the nearest one, I took a quick look inside.
“Putty explosives. Damn. The media’s going to have a field day. We deserve a bonus.” I looked around. The sight wasn’t very pleasant. “Though our bonus will probably be used to clean up the mess you made.”
“No need to shower me with gratitude.”
“I keep you modest. Admit it.”
“Of course. I’ll be over there in a few minutes. You don’t look like you want to do ten flights of stairs by yourself.”
My laughter was cut short by the throbbing headache it created. “What clued you in?”
A sigh. “Do you really want to know how you look?”
“…No, I really don’t. Probably like I ran face-first into one too many brick walls, and then kept doing it.”
“Something like that.”
“Thanks.”
“Mm-hm.”
“No, I mean it. Thanks.” I didn’t even want to think about what might’ve happened if I hadn’t asked him to come.
It was gradually beginning to lighten outside, but dawn was still a ways off. We’d get back before sunrise, and most of Toharon wouldn’t even know we’d ever left. I could’ve been among that number—at home, sleeping peacefully, unbloodied and unbruised. I could’ve continued to sit around and waited for other people tell me what to do with my life, watched power change hands as dispassionately as I watch TV infomercials, and waited for some new people to tell me what to do.
Or I could be here, in the midst of it all, doing anything but idly twiddling my thumbs.
Next time, they won’t even know what hit them.
