Wake up. Easiest thing in the world to do. We all do it at various intervals and occasionally even the comatose get a reprieve on their sentences. I have no cognitive reason to dislike the sensation of waking. It is one of the few things we have in this world that reminds us that we exist, in some form or fashion, that reminds us we are still alive. The concept itself holds no sway with me one way or the other but the sensation of waking, that moment just between when the subconscious retreats and the consciousness takes over always feels like being plucked from the air and sent hurtling back towards the earth, bound to leave little more of my legacy than an impact crater. They say it's good to be alive but sometimes I have to wonder.
Alive, in this case, means that the pungent odor of week old summer garbage wafts up from the alley, through the tiny apartment to form the front lines of its assault on my nostrils, bringing me from that lucid half state fully into myself. Shit. You'd think I'd learn to go to bed with the window closed.
Sitting up, I take a glance around the room. I use room in the loosest sense of the word as this is barely larger than most walk-in closets. The stark gray walls were never painted gray. Legend holds that at one point in time they might have even been white but that age has long since passed. Words are scribed along the surfaces of my little closet bedroom, a living memorial to previous tenants and the unfailing ability of some dipshit to come along and proclaim that so-and-so was here. Inevitably they've misspelled here. Records of ownership or wanting to leave some sort of mark on the world perhaps. I've not left any such marks myself, I really don't care if anyone ever knows I was here and, sometimes in the middle of the night I have to wonder if I really am here.
The neon lights outside of my window provide more than enough illumination for me to be able to read them should I choose, but not tonight. Hovering in the periphery of my vision is a little clock, dutifully letting me know that it is currently 11 PM Pacific Standard Time. That explains the sudden awakening, it's about time for me to get the message I've been waiting for. Grabbing my shirt, I slide it back on my torso as I stand up and give the small, hard cot that serves as my bed a last look. Yeah, more sleep would be nice, but there's always another time for that. Stepping from the bedroom to the front room that pulls triple duty as living room, dining room and kitchen, I have to marvel slightly at how a human being could live in such a small space. If you weren't gifted with claustrophobia, staying indoors too long here would likely cause its rapid onset. The coffee maker gives off a small beep, letting me know that it sensed my presence and has performed its singular duty with cheerful efficiency. Smug bastard.
I take the cup and turn to the wall that serves as a television, computer and entertainment system all in one. It doesn't really matter where you go anymore, you find these things. Gotta do something to keep the people occupied or they might just figure out how much things have fallen apart. It makes me miss the days when the TV existed in the living room, the computer in the office, and almost everyone had all the space they wanted to waste on such things as entertainment centers, desks, couches, tables, chairs. Well, that's not precisely fair, I do have a chair at least, which I sink in to as I drop a pair of Adderall tabs down my throat and wash them through with a swig of coffee.
Switching from television to computer on the wall, I pull up the messages that have come through while I was busy pretending to be a coma patient. A message from the girlfriend buried in the pile of junk screaming for attention. Some day, a company may come out with a drug that can increase the size of your penis, and the world will never, ever know. Student loan offers, car offers, sex offers, everyone wants to give everything away for free, as long as you're willing to pay for it. Junk folder. Ah, a message from a user calling himself Harry Backman. That's my contact, and it seems some work has fallen into his lap, which means, my lap.
I have no idea what Harry's real name is, or if he even has one. No records means anyone can be whoever they want, and no one blinks twice. Universal anonymity has been one blessing that came from the Collapse and people like me find it exceedingly useful.
I read the job description, payout and so forth, send off my acceptance along with the requisite thank-yous and such, then hit the door.
Stepping onto the street I have to look up. An old habit but one I can never seem to break. The sky is a gray slate, like a freshly erased but often used chalkboard. Tabula rasa, the old way of saying it goes, a clean slate but one that is hardly ever as clean as anyone would wish. City lights wash out even the starlight that used to guide, inspire and beckon to the people of old. No one looks for the stars anymore, and sometimes I have to wonder if they are aware they even exist. Funny how life works like that, something that was once so important is so easily discarded in favor of the new and shiny thing.
Not that things are particularly shiny in this part of the city. The former ghetto of South Central LA was a shining pillar of prosperity compared to this place. No-tell motels, apartment buildings, small shops and theaters serve as a warren to the down and out, the people who fell so far through the cracks they became lost to themselves as much as everyone else. The architecture stands silent and idle above us, creating a confusing array of alleys, streets and passageways that only the brave or foolhardy would traverse. A maze for all the little rats but there's no cheese at the end of these tunnels.
As I hoof it towards my destination I think back over the details of this assignment. It's unusual in my line of work to deal with text only, instead of pictures but I have two things working for me. When it comes to things read, I have a photographic memory. Couple that with an imagination that somehow has managed to survive inundation by every form of media in existence currently and there's very little I can't solve. It seems in this situation someone decided to take something that didn't belong to them. Unfortunately for these poor souls, they took from the wrong people, people with plenty deep pockets, but not much patience.
I have little doubt they could have taken care of this problem themselves but chances are fairly high that they don't want to be caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. Not that there's anything to be afraid of from much of a legal standpoint, but one always has to maintain their image. Reputation is about all anyone has anymore when the law of the land is lassez-faire and everyone worships at the alter of the Almighty Dollar. Never been one for religion myself.
Moving further from the center of town, the buildings started to grow lower and lower, but in an almost inverse proportion as the buildings become smaller the graffiti becomes more profound. Territorial markers, warnings and wouldn't you know it, idiots proclaiming to other idiots that they were indeed here. Not the best place in the world to go for a walk by yourself, and even worse if I were wearing some sort of flash. The sound, no scratch that, the feeling of a pounding bass hits my chest before the sound ever reaches my ears as a car makes a turn onto the street ahead. Old school, some sort of antique Chevy/Buick something does a slow roll up the street, the passenger window sliding down whisper quiet. It's difficult to see inside through the haze of smoke but I spot two pair of black sunglasses giving me the long stare as the boom boom boom from the pounding speakers washes out all other sounds around me. I give them the cool eye in return. It's like dealing with any other predator, they sense fear, prey on it. The staredown lasts a minute or two, then the window slides back up and they go in search of an easier target, music thump thumping along behind them. Idiots.
It's no small wonder to me why these bangers all have their own sign language, they've likely blown out their eardrums long ago. Even my ears are still ringing from the noise but slowly the sound of the city starts to wash back over me. A vending machine here, another there, some freebie box playing commercials for this or that television program, somewhere further out the brief sound of gunfire. This used to be a nice suburb.
Of course, that was before the wars. City wars hit it the hardest, turning it from frontline into no-man's-land between New Riverside and some Chinese city that no one can really pronounce. A few houses are still standing here and there, most riddled with bullets, more than one looks like it should have been condemned long ago, but there's no one left to make that declaration and no one cares enough to try and clean the place up themselves.
I take a slow stroll past the place where Harry said these fools had holed themselves up at. Not bad actually. All four walls were still mostly intact, roof had a few soft spots that fell in, even got a bit of scorched grass in the mudhole of a yard. Like the song says, ain't that just a kick in the head, they got themselves an actual house, not the tiny cubbyhole the rest make due with. Quiet outside with a lot of nothin doin. No lookouts standing around that can be seen, no cameras, nothing at all really. Give better than even odds that these guys are packing though, anyone with half a brain does in this part of town. Not me though, no need. When there's enough arms laying around to make any tinpot dictator cream their pants, it's easy enough to find what you need.
Time to make like a chameleon. Couple rips in the shirt, tousle the hair out of shape, put on the haggard face but the jeans get left alone save for some dirt. It's easy enough to do the face part, you need a mirror and lots of practice, hopefully without making yourself laugh. The face says a lot about a person, and they're easy enough to make. Sick, tired, hard, or in this case, like a junkie in need of a fix, all of them are only a matter of letting parts of your face go tight or slack. Pulling long days and short nights doesn't hurt either.
I turn back and make my way to the door, giving it a solid couple of whacks with my fist, then wait. It doesn't take long til this asshole answers the door dressed like a long dead grunge bandleader in this wrinkled tee that looks like it hadn't seen a wash in centuries, red flannel shirt tied around his waist that had seen better days and a ripped up set of jeans. He gives me the hard look with his good eye, the other surrounded by chrome with a beady red orb set into it, reminded me of that flatvid game character from way back when, dude with a huge knife, whatever his name was.
We do the usual jive back and forth, you know how it goes. That whole, the fuck do you want sorta thing. It's a conversation that's going nowhere quickly and it starts to become apparent, because before long we've stopped doing question and answer time and have moved along to the requisite fuck-you-no-fuck-you thing and it doesn't take long till he's slapping iron and hauling a beast out from beneath that dried-spaghetti colored flannel. I told you, everyone carries.
It's not a bad piece, really, if a bit old-tech. A nice .357 revolver that's had a few modifications by some skilled hands. Obviously not this guy's hands, but someone's. I don't even bother putting my hands up, just reach up and snag the loser's elbow with one hand, slapping the butt of the pistol with the other. By the time his brain's sent the command to his finger to pull the trigger, the snout of that nasty boar is pointed squarely at his temple. That part probably didn't even have a chance to register as his brain exploded out of the side of his head in a spray of blood, bone, gray matter, and sparks flashing like a miniature phosphorous grenade had gone off in his brain pain. Told you he was an asshole.
I pick up the piece and hustle ass into the house, no way they didn't hear that bull roar. Wheel-gun means I've got probably five shots left, but fortunately I shouldn't need that many. I pop the cylinder just to be sure, never know but the guy's cooked off a few before or forgot how to load it properly, but I'm in luck. Five, just like I thought. Snapping the cylinder back into place, I haul up just short of a door as I hear a bit of scuffling around inside and someone muttering a string of fuck-fuck-fucks under their breath. A quick peek around the corner shows me some dude with long black hair rummaging through various trash piles looking for something. I don't give him the time of day, instead just indexing him center mass and firing.
Most target shooters will argue with you on this point all day, until they run out of breath and are blue in the face, but within a few meters your sight picture doesn't matter. You'll never have the time to pull one up, especially not if the person you're shooting at aims to impale you with something sharp, pointy and vicious or has aims on shooting at you first. All you have time to do is point your weapon like you were going to point your finger at him and blast away. Unless you're completely inept, you're more likely to hit them as to not.
A quick check tells me that the guy's wearing a Kevlar tee. Smart that at least. I wear one myself because, let's be fair you never know but that someone's going to take a shot at you just for the hell of it. Grease head's down but not out of the fight, at least, not until I take his neck and crank until I hear a snap. There's a visceral difference in the sound of cartilage popping and bone breaking. If you only twist the head one direction, all you're going to do is cure them of a stiff neck, chiropractors do that much all day long, but lifting and twisting, or twisting in more than one direction, that's how you get the job done right. That puts him out of the fight for good.
A moment's pause and I tune back into the world again, senses buzzing, alive. Somewhere further into the house a radio blares some crappy rock/rap thing with a whiny lead 'singer' and these dentist drill guitars that bore into your skull in exactly the way you would rather they not and I seriously have to wonder how groups like this manage to still cling to the world and whatever happened to musicians with real balls.
I ghost my way towards the sound of the radio but no sooner do I peek my head around the door frame than I'm met with a hail of copper and lead intent on perforating me like so much Swiss cheese. Being me, it's almost funny how used to this whole getting shot at thing I am as I duck back and let the guy rock and roll his ass off into the wall opposite the door, spraying chunks of dust and plaster all over the place and, it's as I figure, nothing more than sheet rock walls. Now, had this guy had any clue what he was doing he'd have zippered the shots towards me and roasted me in my boots, but instead, I hear him reloading and rocking it out through the doorway again. I let him.
While he wastes ammo, screaming his head off about this that and the other, I take a few taps on the wall which has become my friend until I find a nice soft spot without any studs in it. By now the guy's going on to his third clip, and ain't it rich, he must have himself a cozy little armory in there with the way he's carrying on. It just makes him easier to locate between the shots and the yelling. Upward angle on the bullets hitting the far wall lets me know he's at least smart enough to get the hell down, but as I punch through the wall with three shots, the sudden silence lets me know that he wasn't quite smart enough.
I step through the door, and sure enough, he's down for the count. One shot caught his leg, then his chest, while the final shot caught him right across the neck. Deflection from the wall, had to be. I'm a better shot than that. Blood pools on the floor beneath him, mixing with a brownish synthetic oil leaking from the bullet hole in his leg. I know what that's like. I've got one shot left, which isn't a bad deal all things considered. The rest of the house looks clear, which means it's time for me to roll on my merry way. I drop the pistol on my way out the door. I never carry.
As I hit the pavement I pop a quick message off to Harry to let him know the job's been done, and sure enough, a few minutes later here comes some big, heavy machine that looks like a cross between one of Moller's Skycars and an armored truck. It's the sort of unholy love-child that looks simultaneously fearsome, with the twin 30mm Vulcan cannons sticking out of it's pig ugly nose, and utterly retarded. It reminds me of a time when I was young and used to watch planes go land at the airfield. One of those 757's coming down just looked like something impossible when they got low enough on the approach, like it was all some sort of optical illusion and what I was seeing wasn't really in the air but sitting on the ground with a mirage of the sky beneath it.
Out of the back of the ugly beast steps what looks like a pair of harried medics and a bruiser in full combat armor that gives the whole block the stink eye. The brute is hauling a top of the line Czechov .50 cal assault rifle and carries it like he knows what he's doing with it. Probably does at that.
The docs start hauling all the bodies out about the time my clock rolls over to 12:01 AM and pulls me out of my reverie with a small chime in my head reminding me that it's time to move along, so that's exactly what I do.
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