WPCA - Victim to Another Level Chap 1

It Rained

It rained. Figures hustled through the near dark, moving from one pool of light to another, seeking out cover. He found himself under one such flickering streetlamp, the near-dead bulb on its last legs of life. Rivulets of water ran off his fedora and an orange glow lit his face as he inhaled through the cigarette.

A person walked past, bumping him, jarring him from his thoughts only to present a polite smile. Resentment was returned in favor for the unsettling of his stance. Anger was the response, followed promptly by a "Fuck off, asshole."

They slide like ghosts in the darkness. Dead, cauterized to a world of pain. An interest only in themselves, their lives, and the small circle of single-serving friends they might have. Portions put together by corporations, designed so that we all take in what we need and throw away what we don't.

He was sure that was a line from a movie somewhere, burnt into the back of his skull at some point. It was always those chance encounters with an eccentric that left some brand on your life. Made you think past the bounds you would normally never set foot past. He blinked, remembering a bus station in a city and approaching midnight, pining about the woes of sleepless nights. "Sleep when you're dead," someone had said. It stuck. He would sleep only when he had put the last nail in his coffin.

A long drag followed by the exhale of fumes into the night air. Hovered there, light and breezy with a noxious odor before dispersing into the fall air. That was it, wasn't it? It was autumn. But there were no leaves on the trees. No, autumn leaves and winter was set to enter. But you wouldn't notice this, not in the twilight.

Turning, he strode forward, polished shoes sloshing in puddles. Past huddled figures, their breath hanging in the air. No respect, no time, no acknowledgement of existence except to move out of the way when you pass by. That was it; that was life. He knew it well--an existence of working, of sleeping, of eating, of buying and of dying. A cycle. Lather, rinse, repeat. The talk of love, of peace, of fun and enjoyment were lies spread by the companies, force-fed to the masses that hadn't the gray matter to see the opposite. It didn't matter.

A brush of air and a door. The sign says "push." He forces entry, walking in out of the rain. A bored clerk eyes him from over a magazine, and then goes back to it. The light hurts his eyes a moment, but just a moment. A convenience store, stocked with candy, with pop, with slushy machines and ice cream and sports drinks that describe how "X-treme" they are and the people who drink them. All in a glance it's taken in and then summarily discarded.

"Where's Harv?" he asks.

"Out back," the clerk replies, not even looking up.

He walks toward the door, twists the handle and enters. There's a rustle, a clicking noise, and as he walks in, three men stand there armed with weapons pointed toward him, their faces blank like the dolls for sale on store shelves. He puts his hands up, all pink and alabaster flesh at once, face just as stoic and blank as the gunmen.

"Ah, Jace, you're here," Harv says, coming from a side door.

His name isn't Jace, but he doesn't bother to correct Harv. There's no point.

"Do you have it?" he asks.

"But of course," Harv replies, all smiles. "And for you, my friend, I give especially good deal."

Harv is his dealer, but not of drugs or weapons, but technology. Harv has some kind of mantra against the selling of weapons or drugs. He didn't care, just as long as Harv delivered on the promise.

"Can I see it?" he asks.

"Ah, but money first, my dear Jace. You know this game, don't you?" Harv says, his voice like vapor in the air.

He reaches into a coat pocket producing a roll of bills. He tosses out on the table and a blank-faced doll sits to count it, eyes opening and closing artificially as he counts.

"It's all here, boss," the gunman says almost mechanically.

He thinks they're all machines, cogs in a network, fulfilling a role. Except these lifeless creatures that thrive on money and drugs and death are far more alive than their legal citizen counterparts who feign life in a consumerism mantra of "die buying."

"Good man, Jace," Harv says.

Harv holds up a small case, like the box that comes with a wedding ring. He knows he'll be married to that piece of technology. Without my rifle, I am useless. A mantra...a creed to something about guns and uselessness and war and death and everlasting...something. He disregards it as fast as it came to his mind, taking the small box from Harv's hand and flipping it open to peer at the chip within.

A small thing, no larger than his thumb-nail, but far more powerful than any desktop PC on the market by far. He would equate it to be powers upon powers more powerful. Better, stronger, faster, but definitely not harder. He'd heard that somewhere, a buzz-word he thought. A pale, thin-lipped smile of politeness was exchanged, followed by the required "Pleasure," and "business with you," words that meant so little. The money only mattered, the consumerism, the need for power. More, more, more. It was all about the 'me'. Me, me, me.

He flipped the top down, turned and walked out of the back, slipping the box deep into an inside pocket on his jacket. He'd put it to use soon. Anything that could control the polymorphic metals the military built that actually fit into your hand cost billions. He had just gotten one for a steal, a cool twenty-five thousand.

He bought a bottle of water and a candy bar on the way out, munching in the darkness. The mute sky peppered him with tears and all he could do was smile. A black and white sky, lit by the alien laminations of the central city to the East. With that twisted grin plastered on his face like a bad rash that wouldn't leave, he hunched his shoulders and moved like a ghost, floating from one streetlamp to the next. Like a citizen, legal and desperate for shelter from the cold and the rain and the darkened night. But unlike the citizen, he relished himself, relished the life, the tech, and the illicit things that he had done and did and would do. To be alive, to be free--it was to be on the wrong side of the fence. And truth be told, the grass truly was greener...green with money.