Blackout

This is Part 1 of this story – others will follow! I’ve also written two other stories, one a Firefly-universe retelling of the story of Jesse James called ‘The Ballad of Leroy Cobb’ and the other called ‘the Valley’ – the story of Kial Burrick, a young man coming to terms with himself, his identity and his purpose living on land in Serenity Valley, before, during and after the war; and I hope to clean them up and post them soon! I must admit I have only glanced at the Serenity Novelisation, so if there are any contradictions I apologise. Also, I’m a criminology student so I’m constantly looking at the really ugly side of humanity, and it’s been pointed out to me that I am not particularly shocked by ideas of terrorism, drug addiction, human trafficking, organ harvesting, prostitution, rape and murder. Sorry if you is…prolly shouldn’t read anything I write.

Oh, and Synth is a drug, also called Blood, Snot or Crimson. Think of it as modern day ice (meth)

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Part 1

A looming City stands to the East: a wall of buildings standing as an impenetrable fortress keeping those toward the sea from those beyond, the sky a lid of altostratus shaped with the cool peaks and billows, a box that defines the sea from the city. No other definitions were important, not day or night, certainly not the translucent gravity which was violated repeatedly not just by the thousands of Skybuses and Polairs and even the inexhaustible cascade of spaceships spilling from the sky, but the buildings, grasping hands, anthills, featureless cubes sparkling the darkness of the night.

When it rains it pours, this urban abyss of neon-on-metal, walls of concrete dotted with grates of steel and snaking fire escapes rusted and worn. Water streaks in serpentine smears down the building faces, grey soaked black. The ground is slicked and white from the street lamps burning bright in the dark night storm. Thunder echoes to the South, deep and unseen, water on the road surface a constant finger-light tattoo multiplied to deafening proportions. Street level shops are still open, some still glowing and flickering with the neon tube lights humming softly below the sound of the raindrops. Curbs and alleys are filled with garbage, the detritus of humanity like the city itself is rotting. Beyond the street the metropolis has a pulse, itself almost lost to the sound of the storm. The ground is slicked, wet enough to send up little-fountains of water from every drop from above making the ground dance like the storm itself conducts it, a massive and chaotically choreographed storm, thunderous and brilliant, deep and silent yet tearing at the ears, malevolent, frenzied, unrestrained. A train blurs from north to south, weaving along its elevated track way, a streaming smear of lights as the carriages are swallowed up by the mass of some dark edifice, clunking and heaving with sickly screams of metal on metal as it rounds kinks and bends, over roadways, through tunnels, untroubled by the fist sized raindrops smattering like gunshots upon the windows and rooftops. Sparks light from the overhead wires, tumbling outwards over the cityscape. As these shorts hit the carriages fall dark, lights pulsing on peristaltically down their lengths, few patrons looking around as the lights flickered back, faces and arms lent against the rain-smeared windows carelessly watching the dark mass of the urban terrain slide by, the train pulling further into the black of the city, speeding them home. The man lies in the centre of the street, a spread eagle on his back, watching the rain from above darting toward him, the forks of lighting blossoming across the dark canopy. It soaks his clothes, his skin, his hair, every inch of him glistening with it, dancing on him as it does the ground around him. There are no techs this time of night, and so he just lays there, still and silent, soaking up the earth and the rain and the pulse of the city humming about him. When he was young he would lie on his back under the cloudless night sky of a distant world, far from the city, feeling the weight of the world behind him, the sting of the chilled air on his skin, the air so clear that it marks no discernable difference between the atmosphere and the vastness of space beyond it. He can feel as if he must cling to the body of earth with all of his might, as if it may release him otherwise, making him floating upwards, outwards into the black void, spinning so slowly, unchained by realities of that moment, free to fly with his own thoughts wherever they may take him. But he is not so young. So he lies there, ignored by the passers by stepping over him, limp and discarded, the apathy of the trains and the flyovers, even the rain just accepting him as it may the earth around him, under him, as he is no consequence. And with this he melts away into it, like the thoughtlessness of the world takes his very existence with it, waning until this world becomes dark, noises once distinct blurring and softening, light fading, until the street itself it clear of him, the night ticking on without regard, until all that is left of him is his forgotten memory and discarded lineage.

Now the street is empty but for the sound of rain.

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Johel’s head slumped against the metal of the bulkhead - hard enough to wake him - as the ship hit atmo, jarring vibrations easing as the old firefly’s engines engaged soundly. The pilot, an excentric guy in a bright pink Hawaiian shirt gripped the controls with learned skill and smiled over at Johel was shook himself into consciousness. “Mornin’ traveller!” He announced. There was just enough time for him to get his bearings, take in his surroundings, and steal a moments gaze out the front window of the universe laid out most spectacularly, belts of stars burning through the inky black. And with it, he savored but a single moment of the glorious panorama that blossomed before him- New Melbourne. From the Core worlds, in pictures, the planet was a blue-green orb as always, swirling belts of pulpy clouds, the yellows and browns of its arching deserts and greens of its impenetrable jungles characterizing its chaotic surface, tiny strokes of colour intermingling at the outer edges of each cloud mass to form microscopic turbulences extending as a procession of ballet dancers ringing the world. All the cloud classes and sub classes existed as a singular image: white, twisted Cyclonic swirls pouring toward a dark eyes, Cirrus as sand dunes over the crystal seas, and the bubbling altocumulus like blankets over the land. Even at this distance, far beyond the core and the asteroid bands, the light from the systems brilliant primary shone with an intensity that seemed to highlight every detail of the planet, every mark and inconsistency over its massive surface illuminated with dazzling reproach. From this vantage though, it was not its colour that astounded, or its infinitesimal facets, it was its vast and powerful contrast. The sable black of space had its own ominous power, but the sharp incision defining space from planet was not a thing that could be shown in a textbook, described by the two-dimensions of a page. They could never show its utter radiance, the dance of energy delineating its outer curve, the naked power of the world. A saccharoid ring barely the width of a human hair encircled its circumference, a dusty halo barely noticeable against the mass behind, invisible squalls of gravity and ferromagnetic energy dancing outward like ephemeral petals from the giant, indiscernible loops expanding and pinching shut from the living world below almost mimicking the fountains of furore that spilled away from the sun millions of kilometers distant. And beyond that: space. So long honored by the ancients, an endless sphere of light and darkness webbed together extending outwards in every direction, no longer marred by the atmosphere that had blinded generations of civilizations, the walls and voids of dauntingly elegant stars swirling together into dense currents and open expanses of silvery perihelion’s, the constellations and nebulous forms amalgamating with the utter darkness of the universe beyond into the commandingly portentous edifice of space. Johel was paralyzed by the sight. It was simply awesome. But the moment was short lived. The pilot quickly flicked a series of switches as the vibrations became more intense. “Now hold on” In a blinding thud of pressure tightening as an iron band across his chest, the ships engines burned harder, albeit soundlessly, spearing the small craft into the grating abrasiveness of the atmosphere. Thrust verniers were like fingers rapping on the shell of the shuttle as the pilot began to manipulate the controls, the stars and moons orbiting far above rolling away and sharply replaced by the upper curve of the world slowly closing faster and faster, as if the ship was an elevator inside an insanely massive shaft, its destination the world below. Johel gulped, but the ship speared onwards. A brilliant radial aura of the systems primary sparkled at a thousand angles glinting in perfect symmetry from both the clear blue haze of atmosphere and the thousands of miles of ocean hugging the worlds surface as the ship began cautiously to slow, its geostatic slide above the worlds equator bringing it over its final destination just as it passed over the planetary terminator, dusk falling for the landmass below, light cutting at angles as if the whole planet was a dazzling prism rotating slowly through the sea of eternal night. And then, in the distance, where the dusk had already begun to settle in the dying light, Johel saw it. Presaria City glinted like a web of stars through the night, a tight knot of glistening, burning pinpoints amalgamating into a singular hub of illumination, around, its light disseminating to individuals points locked only together by faint proximity in relation to the mass abound. To the west the ocean, vast and cool and dark without significant visual distinction from the equatorial continent through the dark. To the east a vast, scopeless continent of harsh deserts cooled to a winters chill in the calm of the night. Dividing them was the city, belonging never truly to either, but not a distinct entity in itself either, a mesh of light spun across the dark coast: bold, intrepid and unafraid. His destination. The Firefly dropped lower, so low now that Presaria City dropped from sight, replaced by mountains who's snow capped peaks were little more than fine ribbons of white cut across the dull grey rock summits, sliding below the craft. They were over a desert now, rich and orange in the dying light, small settlements black specks. Ahead, more mountains, and then the city. New Melbourne was a true anomaly in the history of human expansion and settlement. Unlike the core worlds it had been atmosphormed to slowly build to full habitability of terrestrial flora, while still being habitable for human life, which was a common trait amongst the sparsely populated, windswept and dry outer worlds. However, much like the core worlds, its population was speedy, growing to many millions in a matter of years. Arable farmland was vast, but its controllers tight-fisted tycoons. What became was the great city itself, built on the equatorial continent (as with most colonies) for its low magnetic and gravity shifts, clinging to the green land left by the ocean and the rivers inland speeding up the progress of life. But it was far from a homogenous whole. The central business region of its capital, Presaria City, was an island of immeasurable wealth, towering icons and edifices gleaming like the surface of the world itself was an ocean of light. Abound it the most luxurious suburban estates, flowing manners and mansions dripped in the finest of the cultures offerings. Others preferred the safety and decency of the gated regions, houses of equal value and prestige protected by sensor strips and the finest security guards on the planet. Next came the middle-class estates, burb's and burb's lost within each other, endless houses and apartment blocks carved up by roads and hyperways and train-lines which fed the city like the arterials of the body, pumping and resting, ebbing and flowing, sustaining it, nurturing it. Keeping it alive. And then the sprawl, the lowest of the low, houses and projects towering upon themselves, arcane and terrible, hideous monstrosities and scab-like masses of cul-de-sacs and blind dead-ends. A home of the unwanted, the Alien, the dispossessed. And in places becoming the jungles and mangroves that surrounds it, as if the dark and the moisture from the great sea beyond created a paracytic fungus, etching inland, encroaching, encompassing and finally becoming one with the twitching barrows. The air outside burned with a ravenous beauty as the boat dipped steeply into the atmosphere, fire licking across her hull in a halo of light grasping toward the heavens with the savage brilliance of a dying comet, streaking like ice fire through the fading light. Azures waned to a burgundy aura that clung to the clumsy mountain-scape, exploding in a nimbus of light streaking in probing strands from the unseen radix, sallow hues condensed to linings of dazzling scarlet beneath the sinewy cloud forms, slowly weakening to a regal amethyst, the sky itself abating into the foreboding navy shade of a night littered with starlight, contrasted no longer by the setting sun, instead bringing a tranquil yet humbling beauty of its own to the night. To Johel though this was all lost, his hands gripped white as vibrations yammered through the hull brought on by slight variations in temperature and water vapor concentrations that amplified through the chemosphere into kilometer long sheers. The vibrations died down as they cut through 40,000 feet, flames shrinking from a matt of fire to intermittent strobes across the hull as they passed through mark five, the long flat underside and screaming engines forcing them to level out just below mark four, aerodynamic surfaces whistling, airflow strumming into a resonating drone. The city was twinkling in the dark now as night finally fell, the Firefly slowing to a safe approach speed, turning into final across the mangroves. As they came over Grovetown they could already see the party, great leaping fire drums burning into the night, marquee tents, people everywhere, some leading animals: horses and camels and cows, traders and captains converging on the off-worlders bar. The Craft burned in a single hard thrust as finally it settled in a cloud of dust upon the Grovetown Docks tarmac, engines wining down. Arrived.

Grovetown at nighttime were more of a carnival than a place of business.

The Firefly was a funny little boat. At its core it was a medium lift transport – big cargo space lined with drums, and boxes filled with things one didn’t ask questions about, and a small yellow mule in desperate need of an oil change. She was old too, even for a Firefly, but her cheerful little mechanic seemed to keep her in check. The captain was a solemn man, tough and pragmatic. There was his offsider as well, a fierce warrior woman and her husband, the pilot, who seemed to talk to Johel the most out of all of them. There was a big bloke, muscles on muscles, no question what he was kept around for. But the biggest mystery was the Companion, flowing robes walking around the ship, although she largely kept to herself inside one of the shuttles rented permanently. In quiet moments she looked sad, especially when she though nobody was watching, pensive like she had something to do, but no way to do it. Coming off the ramp the crew walked with him, the chirpy little engineer singing away sweetly, offers of advice and encouragement. Of course, none of them knew why he was there really, and although he was fairly certain they had all realized that, they chatted away anyways, finally dispersing to pick up work, supplies and passengers in the next leg of there endless sojourn around the ‘verse once more.

It was not hard to find what he needed. The Ident strip he had with him was the genuine article and would've given him unquestioned pass into the city, but somewhere a light would flick on and they would know where Johel was. Identity and location were valuable assets, one which Johel respected and protected. The new Ident-strip looked enough like him to get him past the Alliance soldiers at the gate – some random Ident gate had been set up - and was a steal at 30 platinum from a back alley dealer. Still though, he needed to be sure. Johel approached the ident gate knowingly, a large covered checkpoint floodlit from above. There was a small control booth, no doubt with a portable atherlink to the Alliance central cortex, a series of turnstiles, scanner pads for whole-body images and a large metal trestle table covered with the belongings of one mans upturned bag. All around stood the large men, all strapped up with combat amour and huge combat rifles tightly held to their chests, eyes impassive and apathetic. He picked the youngest Federal Marshall he could, a freshly shaven boot, and handed him his passpoint documents and the ident card with 400 cashy money sandwiched between. It scored him an odd look, but a sideways glance to a distracted senior officer sealed the deal and he was ushered past the checkpoint with all the right documentation to permit his travel and stay within the city, stamping his passpoint without second glance. Johel tucked them into a pocket inside his big, thick black coat, turned up his collar and started walking, absorbed immediately by the crowded early evening streets. The night was cool and calm, and the buzz of energy from shop fronts and street-stalls electrified the air. Crowds bustled through the streets, half ragged shoppers or workers finding their way home, or perhaps finding their way out into the night. The street lamps burned but were overrun by the strings of orange and red and blue and green bulbs which threw a glare which seemed to work to both guide the way and separate the streets from the reality of the night, they gave the feeling of a constant street-party, the music softly finding its way through the streams of a breeze, the strangely dressed passers by, the odd dialects and customs all ingredients in the feel of this place. The shouts of vendors, the tinkling of metal trinkets, the constant yammer of wooden wheels over the road cobbled by asphalt repairs. It was where people lived, worked, socialized. Where they existed. Still though, it was never without a sense of danger: of urgency. Maybe that’s what drew people to this place. Maybe. Johel caught a rickshaw for three silver up past Grovetown station, turning southward toward Millsmede Junction. He passed stalls selling various varieties of fruit, most yet without names, restaurants with food that filled the air with a blend of smells exotic and powerful like drugs themselves. Drugs were an easy-come by, vendors like pharmacies at every corner. Hookers too, many hundreds passed in the journey Johel would reckon, some old, some middle, most very young. One had snagged a customer, retreating to nothing but an alley or behind a car to make their exchange. In the buildings that surrounded, windows peered down likes glassy eyes, some burning with light, some snuffed to darkness. They held all manner of people, all manner of things, Scientists and engineers of chaotic creation, magicians and conjurers of equal distain, junkies and users feeding themselves upon the vile chemicals which seemed to flow from the city faster than water and hotter than blood; and the whores and there dens: Most little more than mattresses sprawled across dusty floors, chains and whips and blood splatters on the chipped and cracked plasterboard. In the distance he could see the vast, aesthetic and apathetic hyperscrapers of the city, towers of white in the blackness, dotted silhouettes of fast-moving air traffic buzzing through the sky more like bugs to a zapper. Separate worlds in a single frame. In the distance he could make out the largest of the buildings, the towering Millennium Building, and closer the bulb of Los Tarryno – the arcane, infamous prison – towering over the barrows as a symbol of alliance control. He lowered his view to street level, obstructed quite quickly by the crowds and the cafes and the markets, but still obvious that it was getting more and more busy ahead, more and more bustling. This was the core of the night markets. Where a person could be or find or get anything they would ever wish for. No Alliance came here, Johel knew that for sure, this is where the fantasy of the stories became the reality of a living, breathing city. This was Millsmede Junction. In essence it was a large roundabout with a park inside it, five roads converging from all angles to encircle it. At its core there was a statue, a piece of artwork thirty feet high, sculpted, aesthetic; some neo-classical rendition of a man reaching for the heavens: it represented everything that the Junction wasn’t. But it wasn’t defaced or torn down, instead its highest point was the tent-pole for a giant marquee tent which contained even more stalls: fruit, clothes, toys, shoes, antiques, live animals, dead animals, weapons, art, books, slaves, cakes, lollies, amateur dentistry equipment, vegetables, potions, Jewellery and Jewels, and so much more, each more extravagant than the last. Some sold services: haircuts, de-licing, massages, fortune telling, but all had one thing alike - a healthy trade of passes by. There was a dark tent at one side of the market; Johel peered toward it with curious eyes. He tapped the driver on the shoulder and tossed him another coin for his troubles, dodging his way through the crowd of locals who somehow sensed an outsider with curious looks, pushing back the fly-mesh, stepping into the dim interior of the tent. It didn’t appear to be that large, although inside it was quite roomy. A line of men and women, children, all holding various scraps of paper, pictures, letters, receipts. An odd man sat at a desk surrounded by books and scrolls and datapads and state-screens scribbling furiously onto a piece of paper, lit by a lime colored gas-light which gave the internals of the space an alien quality, and a small red wax candle on his desk which flickered intensely. There was one thing very different about this place compared to the rest of the market beyond the walls: in here it was quite quiet. No one spoke, all confined to there own thoughts, fears and failings. “Next!” The Man yelled. The line advanced forward. Johel could now see where the end was, before just a disorganized mass. One guy, a bouncer, stood at the far side of the space. He shot a piecing glare at Johel when he looked. “You” The bouncer said “Do I know you?” He squinted, as if trying to recall the face. “Maybe” Johel said “I am supposed to find somebody here” Everybody was looking. Johel’s eyes wiped over them as attention was drawn to him. “Come with me” The bouncer said, pushing back a previously unseen hole in the side of the tent, leading him through.

They walked through gaps between the stalls, where most did not go, between piles of boxes full of merchandise: the knock-offs for the Jewelry shops, someone passing a shirt through a mangle: taken from the back of a homeless man unable to pay his debt. The bouncer led and Johel followed, out into the crowd, jostled sideways by the weight of people, further, across the roads filled with crowds, stealing into a small vestibule at the entrance to some shabby public housing project, long forgotten and neglected. A large, open, black and white checked floor, wooden stair case, an elevator with a dusty "out of order" sign hung across it, concierge office windows shattered and boarded up and several metal benches bolted to the floor. Silent, except for the occasional hiss and pop of a flickering fluro tube on the ceiling. A wasted synth addict was balled up in the corner muttering silently to himself, a spent syringe on the lino next to him. The bouncer didn’t even look, advancing to the staircase, Johel snatching a single glance. Up stairs, two levels, the bouncer left the stair-case and advanced out along a long corridor, graffiti marked, carpet soiled and rotted. Most rooms had heavy wooden doors painted green. One simply had a gaping hole, inside a trio of squatters huddled around a oil lantern laughing there asses off about something you needed to be high to understand. Finally the bouncer came to a halt outside an otherwise in descript door. “You know what you need to do?” He said. It was more of a statement than a question. “I know” The bouncer pulled open is coat and handed Johel a Hessian wrapped packet, careful not to touch that within with his own skin. Johel had no hesitation, a black pistol and two spare ammo clips. He tucked the pistol into his belt behind his back and threw the Hessian cloth to the floor. “Ready?” The bouncer asked. Johel nodded. No good-luck granted from the stern face. He knocked three times fast, then two sets of two. On the final knock the door edged open a crack, held there by a chain latch. The muzzle of a shotgun was visible. “What?” A scabby voice from inside. “The man. He’s here, with me” The bouncer said plainly. “Right”. The door snapped shut, and the sound of the chain ratcheting off its rail came a moment before the door opened revealing a stunted, pasty little man, eyes sunken, clutching a rifle in one hand. Johel and he looked at each other for a moment. “Well, are you coming in or what?”

The thin man led Johel alone into the apartment, windows covered with black plastic backs held on with plumbers tape, into a small lounge room, a buzzing broadcast screen sitting on a milk crate, a dank couch and a lamina coffee table covered in syringes (used and unused), rubber bands and metal spoons carbonated black by the gaslight at the centre of the table. The thin man collapsed wearily on the couch, like the journey to the door and back had been a marathon, and pointed to the door on the far sit of the room. “Through there” Already he was emptying a hit of Synth, the rueful rouge powder, into a spoon and checking the syringes on the table by eye, seeing which had been used, and which were freshies. Johel was shocked enough not to care.

The room beyond the door was dark, barely lit by a string of candles. A small, balding Asian man sat behind a desk, reading some scroll, occasionally muttering to himself. He saw Johel enter. Behind him were stacks of books, old and leather-bound. Such an archaic way of keeping track – such a private way also. No computer systems could sneak into books. “Ahh, so it is you who comes” He said, smiling slyly “After so many letters it is strange I was not expecting you” “My name is Johel” He extended one hand. “Thank you for seeing me” “That is my purpose” The Asian man said, somewhat enigmatically, shaking his hand softly. "I’m looking for someone" Johel said after a time. "Me?" the man replied "No" Johel said, confused. "You do not seem to be successful" the odd man said without looking up "for it seems to be me whom you have found" "I was told that you can find things" "What manner of things?" the man replied sharply, for the first time looking up. It immediately became obvious he was missing his right eye, a fleshy socket covered by a pair of thin spectacles. "A person, a Journalist" Johel told. The man’s eyes peered at him, and held the gaze for a time with enough intensity for if he had two eyes. "And who is it whom told you this, of my special abilities?" "A…friend" "One is not defined by their relations, only by their names, as is the way of it. What is your friends name?" "It doesn’t matter" Johel said quietly. "Then I would suspect little does" Silence. The man continued with his reading. "I’ve only ever called him ‘Sir’, but those not in his employ call him Adelei Niska " Johel said. The mood changed. "Ah, yes" The man said, stopping sharply, a thin smile cracking across his face "A friend indeed" "He told me that you could help me find what I am looking for" "As I can. But do you know what you are looking for?" He queried. "Do you know what it is that Mr Niska has sent you for?" "It is not my place to ask" Silence as the odd man considered this. "Who is the Journalist you are looking for?" "We are unsure of her identity. All we have is an IPN Login code from a telephonix screen in Ariel City" Johel handed the odd man the information, and he studied it carefully with his good eye. He nodded and turned away, up, running his finger across the hundreds of books behind until he finally came to one with his index finger, tapping it softy. He pulled it from the rack of books and planted it down on the desk with a loud thump, flicking to the right page almost immediately. His finger traced a list of scrawled names on the piece of paper. The man collected scrap and scribbled across it some words, then tucked it into an envelope. He sealed it with a wax stamp heated from a candle on his desk, then offered it across the desk. "Information only comes with one request. That it never comes back to the source" "Of course. Thank you." Johel took from his pocket a bag, the pre-determined price already within. He placed it within the mans outstretched hand, but before he could stand then man grabbed his wrist. "It is once said that a man should have friends close but enemies closer. You know this?" The man said, looking directly into Johel's eyes. "Yes" Johel said, his mind racing, unsure of the question. "May I offer advice." Johel was silent, then nodded as he realized it was a question. "Be wary of such men. Having so many so close, it is often difficult to determine who are no longer enemies, and who are no longer friends".

Out in the lounge Johel opened the envelope and read the address provided, scrawled in scratchy handwriting. The druggie was on the couch slowly drifting into a mind-bending coma as the Synth flowed into him, his frail, boney hands rubbing over his hair and face as if to clear it from some invisible contaminant, eyelids fluttering. The needle was still protruding from the dirty injection point, the thin barrel of the hypodermic injector slicked with some bruise-red fluid. Johel stepped past him, pushing back a curtain of beads through to the grubby kitchen. It was empty and silent except for the mumble of the fridge. The bathroom was rank with mold, the mirror chipped and fungus infected, shower and bathtub little better, a tiny cramped little space obviously not used for some time. Johel flicked on the light switch, fluro clicking to life above him, steady hands twisting on the taps above the vanity, a steady shunt of brown muck flowing for a moment before the stream became clear. Johel washed his face in it, the heat of the water beginning to fog the mirror softly around its corners. He looked into his eyes. There was the distinct feeling he had been here before. Maybe he had. It often occurred to him that maybe he was simply completing the same assignment again and again; with his memory erased after each there could be no way to tell, no way to sense the time that he had lost, nor the scope or continuum of it. How old was he? His face had marks, most tiny, insignificant blemishes shrugged off without a second thought by the casual observer, but it occurred to Johel that he had no idea how it was he came to have any of them. How many times had he looked into this mirror, staring back at himself? Hundreds, maybe. So many now it had lost purpose, like saying the same word to many times, broken down to its constituents, loosing its whole; a pulpy amalgamation of skin and form, scarred and broken. His eyes circled over his flesh with the pace of a surgeons knife, then locked on, staring back into his eyes with piercing purpose, and now screamed only one thing: Killer. He heaved, the vomited steadily into the vanity.

Johel picked up the druggies shotgun laying lazily propped up against the wall, checking the back rooms. A woman lay on one bed, naked, passed out. Nobody else. Johel advanced back through the apartment, pushed aside the door into the office area. The Asian man still sat with purpose, his mind bubbling with thoughts. His one eye immediately saw the shotgun cradled in one arm. “Everyone’s destiny arrives some day” He resigned. Johel pulled the pistol from his belt and blasted the man through the chest, his small body slammed against the bookshelf behind, sliding to the ground in a stained heap. He turned and walked into the lounge, taking quick aim on the druggie splayed out defenselessly. From beyond the window, in the street, there was only the briefest stab of light through the window, unseen and unnoticed. Johel didn’t slow. He entered the back bedroom striding, pistol held high. The naked woman was wide-awake now, standing in the corner of the room, pitifully attempting the shelter herself against her own fear. Johel hesitated, gun locked on. She whimpered, turning her head, noticing him falter. “Take what you want” She said, turning to face him. She was not old, maybe late twenties, stripped down to bare skin bathed white in the warm light from beyond the windows, hands hanging awkwardly by her sides. She had a heart-shaped face and a small smattering of freckles, brown eyes. In her Johel saw so many others, countless faces, bargaining themselves for there lives, half images floating within a forgotten stream of consciousness. “Im sorry” Johel said. Johel left her body face up on the blood-stained mattress and walked back out to the lounge. He pulled the gas rigging from a fireplace, allowing a steady stream to hiss into the apartment, throwing the oven on in the kitchen, door closed. By the time the gas reaches it the entire apartment will be filled, torching the building. There would be no investigation, not here in the grove, unfortunate deaths – but life goes on. Thumping on the door. Johel’s head snapped around. A muffled voice was yelling through it, male and angry. Some quarrel these men had maybe. That door wouldn’t hold for long. Johel pushed himself up against a wall in a shadowed corner of the room, watching the door with one eye, pistol in hand. The door burst open finally under the weight of a big man, heaving and swearing “Where are you! Mia! Where’s my gorram money girl!”. Shit. Her pimp maybe, or some other employer. There was another guy behind, a skinny guy with his hands on a SMG. The pimp advanced into the bedroom, still swearing, and caught sight of the girl limp on her back. He checked her vitals but she was quite dead, slug to the heart, eyes glassy and still. Not cold though, her skin still warm to the touch. A muffled cry from behind him. The big pimp turned, pulling a pistol from his coat, sidestepping carefully out into the lounge. He could see the druggie, hole through his chest, blood dribbled from his cracked and dry mouth and onto a small pool soaking into the carpet. And beyond him lay the skinny guy, face down, head twisted at some obtuse angle. The muzzle of Johel’s pistol pushed into the back of the pimps neck. “Drop it” He breathed, the pimp quickly obliging. Johel kicked the pistol to the far side of the room. The smell of gas was already thick in the air. “I’ve got cash on me” The pimp pleaded “ten thousand” “I don’t want your money” Johel breathed. The pimp turned fast, a snapping, jarring impact of elbow to the steel of Johel’s pistol, quicker than Johel could think it, Johel tightening on the trigger in reaction. The gun discharged in a horrible burst of white fire, gas igniting with a solid detonation throwing Johel across the room. His back slammed again the wall behind, sliding until his butt reached the floor, singed and dazed. The pimp was howling, trying to clear his eyes as his hair smoked, flash burns frying his eyebrows, seeing Johel’s temporary daze, making for the door. Johel raised his pistol arm and fired from the floor, blowing two holes into the plaster centimeters behind the man, dust and chips of board exploding outwards. The pimp made the door, out into the hallway. Johel snatched up the shotgun, sprinting in pursuit, catching a moment of him at the far end of the hallway darting toward a stair case. The shotgun boomed, kicking hard into Johel’s shoulder, a spray of debris from the wall next to the fleeing man. The pimp sprinted the stairs, breathing hard, the figure of Johel seemingly right on his heels. He slammed through a set of glass double doors at the bottom with his shoulder, out into the internal courtyard of the housing flats rising up around him, ugly wrought-iron balustrades adorned with untended flower pots, a few individual lights on here and there, all looming over him. He ran. The pimp reached a disused, scum infested swimming pool when Johel fired again, sending a spray of goo and froth like dog saliva across the running man, long since dead birds bobbing around violently as the shotgun blast hit. Johel was still for a moment, tracking the pimp with the barrel as he pumped the receiver, a second shot hitting a concrete abutment forward of the pimp, showering it with lead slugs. Curious onlookers appeared from there apartments, leaning over the railings, staring down into the courtyard. Johel resented the attention, pumping a round into bystander, watching her fall to her knees in shock, others screaming as they retreated into there rooms. He started running again, past the rippling pool, past the abutment, over twisted and cracked concrete pavers, through a dark, abandoned rear lobby and out into an alleyway lined with piles of garbage, high brick walls, skips and a few four wheeled techs. And complete silence. There was no other way the pimp could have gone, and he could not have reached the end of the alley before Johel had gotten there, which meant that he was still here somewhere. Johel pumped the shotgun again, a small red shotgun shell clicking over the pavement before finding its end in a gutter. He stalked through the shadow, keeping low, eyes darting from gaps between techs, under skips, cracks and crevasses where the man may have jammed himself. No sounds. Maybe on the far side of a car, pushed up inside one of Johel’s blind spots. He advanced forward, between two little aerodynamic techs, muzzle at the ready. The vehicle in front came to life with a flicker of energy. In a spontaneous reaction, Johel jumped, the tech backing up hard, Johel’s feet catching the reach bumper in mid flight to hurl him backwards, landing hard on the bonnet behind, his feet high enough not to be crushed off as the techs came together in a twisting crunch of plastic and metal. Johel caught the pimp in the drivers seat. He pumped a shotgun blast through the back window, largely un-aimed, turning the screen into a white shower of crystal splinters bursting inwards. The four-wheeler slipped into forward, tires squealing on the asphalt. Johel blasting into it as it accelerated away. The first shot hit the rear tire, causing it to blow and strip away from the hub. The second his the sideview mirror, pulping it. For the last Johel sidestepped into the middle of the alley, holding the shotgun high and placing a shot through the rear window. The pimps figure collapsed forward with the impact. The tech continued for a moment, skewing sideways until it’s soft nose crumpled around a skip bringing the entire contraption to a shuddering halt. The shotgun was dry, and so he dumped it to the curve, pulling his pistol. The drivers door was kicked open from a leg within. The bloodied figure of the pimp emerged, collapsing to the roadway, vainly crawling from the wreckage. Johel stopped before him and raised the pistol. The shot hit Johel in the left shoulder, burning pain like a red-hot poker being jarred through his arm. It came so fast it knocked him backward, off his feat and onto his back, the second shot harmlessly whizzing over his head. The pimp’s figure rolled as he dropped the pistol, hearing it skittle along the roadway, up to his feet, hobbling on one leg, the other stiff and firm, one arm cradling the other, a silhouette in the glary light of the alley. Johel blinked twice, regaining himself, and picked up his own pistol lying next to him. The clip had ejected from the impact. He frantically tugged through his pocket for a second. The pimp was gaining speed, hobbling faster and faster, looking back over his shoulder and accelerating again. The fresh clip slammed into the base of the grip, Johel using his bad arm to hold the gun while he flicked off the safety, then trained on the target, squinting through the sights. The pimp was desperately scrambling now, limping with furious determination toward the end of the alley, ten meters, five meters. The round blew a gust of blood into a fine crimson mist which bloomed out from the back of his neck, harder than a sledgehammer. Johel heard the sickly crack as his skull split open on the roadway. His body lies still, crumbled just short of the road beyond. Few see him, and definitely nobody stops to help lest they lay down next to him. Johel slumps back on the ground, holding his eyes closed against the night, breathing as the pain ebbs through him, infectious. It took five minutes to peel himself from the road. Five more to reach the apartment. At least everybody was smart enough not to get in his way on the return trip. A smear of blood was caked on the floor through the open door of the apartment, coming from inside, as if a body had been dragged down the hallway. Checking, both the hooker and the bodyguard were missing. Bloody organ snatchers; like sharks, constantly waiting, drawn to the sound of violence and smell of blood in the water. Or maybe just some yokel who found two warm bodies and feels they could make a profit from them. Already those two would be in the back of some mule headed for the warehouse district, grimey, long closed abattoir run by a fish gutter or a butcher or maybe even a vet if they’re lucky. Johel pulled closed the door to the apartment and locked it with a large wooden post fitted into two grooves on either side, obviously for that purpose. His arm was almost totally stiff now, the hanky shoved through the jacket soaked and bloody. In the bathroom Johel found a box of bandages behind the mirror and used a lighter and his pocket knife to pull the bullet out. It hadn’t gone in deep, the gun was probably fouled somehow, Lucky. Johel found an bottle and tipped soy vodka on top of the wound, the finest from some place he’d never heard of, feeling the sweet sting and burn of the liquid. He resisted the temptation to take a swig. Drying the injury, he noticed it had started to coagulate, packing it with gauze and tightly bandaging it, each curl of the thick bandage followed by a quick hiss as the pain flooded through him. Wasn’t much blood on the Jacket. He pulled it over himself careful of his left shoulder. At the door he grasped the wooden beam with both hands and lifted gently, careful to brace himself against the sudden burning making him grit his teeth. It was too hard the first time, so he simply used his good arm to leaver it away. From under the door, were the gap between the base of the door and the floor revealed a thin crack of light, a shadow moved. Johel stopped and watched it. It was still for a second, then shifted again. Somebody was outside. Replacing the beam, Johel found a small black box buried within the folds of his jacket – his backup – clicking on a single button and hiding it in a kitchen cupboard. He broke a window with his pistol, the glass shattering loudly, yet obviously much more loudly inside than out. Climbing through, Johel dangled with one hand grasping the top of the window, his foot on a drain pipe, dangling against the side of the building before he jumped out, swimming in free fall for a moment before crunching down on both feet. Fortunately he did not loose his footing on the landing and roll onto the shoulder. That may have attracted some attention. He looked back up at the building, scouring his efforts for a moment. With comic timing the vast body of a police converted Pig class skiff rumbled low overhead, down washing picking up rubbish and throwing it in all directions. Floodlights crunched on, peering in at the scene as armed and armoured officers began to poor from fast ropes dangling from either side, boots on the ground with harsh clips, movements precision. Thirty seconds later an anti-crime assault team, responding to a class B (Informant led) Crime alert used an explosive to blow through the door of the apartment, led to it by the trail of blood from the road, through the lobby, past a wasted junkie, up the stairs, down the hall and under the door. A second grenade entered: aesthetic gas bomb, followed by ten heavily armed law enforcement officers in combat flak-vests, helmets and gas masks – the standard kit out for operation in the barrows - finding only a dead Asian guy an a likewise dead druggie and a large pool of blood on one bed. The team didn’t even have time to search the place when Johel’s bomb went off. From inside the cupboard, it burned hot, torching the kitchen, hot enough to ignite air. The windows blew out in an instant, great globules of fire spilling out, consuming the police team in an instant under a blanket of smoke and heat. It would take two fire crews an hour to get the blaze under control. When additional police units arrived, and in the investigation that followed, all that could be recovered was a vague description of the perpetrator, neither tall nor short, dark jacket. DNA, fingerprints, weapons, all stripped from the crime scene under a shimmer of heat. Johel had looked back up at the apartment for a second, watching the great leap of fire, before hunching his shoulders and walking away, calving his own path into the night through the crowds, ambling slowly north. The city stood ahead, and once again the looming promise of Los Tarryno, the torture halls and punishment cells trapped within the weather rusted iron walls, cages of screaming men moaning for absolution. A single man entered the city, lost against the sea of them.