Silver Lining
Chapter 2
The Warehouse had once been a store for the “Instant Gratification Food
Emporium” but it had been abandoned for over 15 years.
For most of that time it had been left to rot, inhabited only by the rats
and the occasional wino looking for a place to sleep.
The windows were boarded up and the doors had been broken down by the
street kids long ago. The rain had got into it, causing most of the walls to be
covered in a thick, grey mould and making the interior ramps and walkways very
insecure and unsafe.
The
building itself was located high above ground level and once had a strong
roadway stretching up to it. The
roadway was still there, but it was no longer strong and very few vehicles dared
use it. Three years ago, the
Warehouse was taken over by the Cloud Runners.
They cleared it of rats and tramps, got rid of the worst of the mould and
replaced the ruined stairs with ropes and ladders.
They got some crude furniture in, replaced some of the boarded windows
with clear plastic sheeting and generally tidied the place up a bit.
Within a few short months, the Warehouse was transformed from a broken
down ruin into something just slightly better than a squat.
During
the few hours of feeble daylight that Mort has, only a few Runners could be
found in the Warehouse, but in the evenings it began to fill up.
This evening it was full of Runners, all waiting to hear how Mike had got
on with his test. Most of the Runners liked Mike and were looking forward to
seeing him take the winged jacket. As
always, there was a lot of background noise going on in the Warehouse and a
stereo was blasting out the latest hit by Ritual, a popular Ebon singer.
In one corner, Sheeala was playing a hand held video game and muttering
quietly to herself and on a walkway on
the other side of the building Elaine stared at the Wraith with undisguised
hatred. Elaine was Danny’s
girlfriend, or at least she had been until the Wraith turned up.
Since Sheeala’s arrival, Danny had spent very little time with his
girlfriend and Elaine blamed Sheeala for this.
Elaine
was a pretty girl, 17 years old with long, straight hair died a deep green
colour. She was tall, slim and
very, very conscious of her good looks. During
the days, she lived with her family in a small apartment in The Warren.
Herself, her mother and her two brothers all lived in a two bedroom flat
on the ground level of the Sector. The
flat was regularly flooded out by the heavy rains and her father had been killed
in a particularly bad flood a couple of years ago.
Elaine had had nothing to look forward to until Danny arrived in her
life. He picked her up in a
shopping mall one day, almost a year ago, and they’d been going steady ever
since.
She
loved the standing she had within the Cloud Runners, being the headman’s
girlfriend, and revelled in the way that Danny doted on her.
Then the Wraith had arrived and everything changed!
Danny had become infatuated with her, spent all his time with her and
virtually ignored Elaine.
“How
could he be interested in her, she’s an alien for shit’s sake!” Elaine
whispered to herself. “Look at
her, she’s a bloody cat. Blue
hair and stripes on her body like a fucking tiger.
Those red eyes are just spooky, you can never tell which was she’s
looking. And as for the claw’s
and fangs! I swear, she’s just a
damn cat!”
Elaine
ran a hand down the length of her body and then looked at the thin Wraith
Raider.
“That
scrawny bitch must have put some kind of spell on Danny.
Who knows what the aliens can do? Still,
Danny will get fed up with her, I’ll give him some time and then reel him back
in. There’s no way in hell that
the mangy alley-cat can compare to me!”
She
laughed to herself then picked up a beer can from the nearby pile.
Popping the ring-tab, she raised the can to her mouth to take a long
drink. When she put the can down
again she saw that Sheeala was staring up at her, her mouth slightly open and
her teeth bared. The Wraith’s
black tongue flicked out and ran the length of one white fang, leaving a
glistening trail of saliva on the pearly white tooth.
A shudder ran down Elaine’s spine and she quickly looked away.
Even from the other side of the room, she could hear the Wraith laughing
at her and it increased her hatred a hundredfold.
The
door of the Warehouse was pushed open and Danny strolled in, followed by another
nine of the Cloud Runner Jury. Everything
went quiet and someone quickly turned off the stereo.
Ritual was silenced in mid lyric as Danny walked into the middle of the
building. He reached for a beer and
took a long drink before saying anything.
“Mike
didn’t make it,” he announced in a voice just loud enough for everyone in
the Warehouse to hear. “He got
through the gap but got himself tangled in the rope.
Reckon he must have broke his neck but we couldn’t hang around to find
out for sure. Shivers arrived and
we had to bug out.”
There
was a shocked silence in the room for a few seconds then everyone started to
talk at once.
“Hey,
Danny,” called Alan, a long term Cloud Runner.
“Where’s Jason and Owen, they didn’t get caught did they?”
“Nah,
Owen was freaked out by Mike not making it and Jason went back to help him out.
I heard them following on a while back but fuck knows where they’ve got
themselves to. They’re more than likely sitting in a bar somewhere with
Owen crying into his beer while Jason holds his hand. Always said that Owen was too much of a pussy to make it.”
Danny
took another long drink of his beer and started to walk over to where Sheeala
was sitting. “Someone turn the
music back on, it’s as quiet as a fucking morgue in here!”
Owen and Jason were indeed sitting in a bar but Owen wasn’t crying into
a drink and Jason was not holding his hand.
They were in ZeeZee’s, the most up-market club that The Warren had to
offer, and were intent on getting as drunk as possible as quickly as possible.
Owen
was sitting, cradling the remains of a large bourbon between his hands and
looking into the depths of the glass.
“There’s
got to be more to life than this,” he confided in Jason.
“I mean, we can’t go through life just stealing and fighting and
getting pissed all the time. What
about bettering ourselves, what about making a better life for ourselves, for
our families? I’m not saying that I don’t like the Runners, I’m just
saying that there has to be something more.”
“Owen,
listen to me,” replied Jason. “You’re
a great guy and I’ve got a lot of time for you, but you’re so full of
fucking shit you squeak when you turn round!
We’ve got a hell of a lot more than most of the sad cases around here
and you’re not happy with it. You
can’t honestly believe that you’re gonna be better off than you are now, do
you? I mean, you’ve got cash,
you’ve got friends, you’ve got somewhere to stay and you’ve got respect. No, I mean you’re given respect …… you’re respected
by the bloody Burrowers!”
Jason
stopped to drain the vodka that he was drinking. “There’s no way that you’re going to be able to get
yourself out of the Warren, it just ain’t gonna happen.
And in the Warren, there’s nothing better than being a Runner.
You’ve got to learn to be happy with what you’ve got man, it’s not
going to get any better than this.”
ZeeZee’s
was made up of one large bar on the main floor and a couple of smaller ones on
the two higher levels. The main
floor was mostly taken up with a dance floor that was crowded with people
gyrating in time to the music that was blasting out.
Lights and lasers flashed across the dancers and smoke rose up from vents
in the floor, giving the impression of steam and mist.
Owen and Jason had a table on the top floor, overlooking the dancers.
Nether had thought about what they were doing, but they had naturally
gone to the highest point in the bar. After
so much time spent on the rooftops, they didn’t feel comfortable unless they
were looking down at everything that was going on.
They’d
come to the club after fleeing the Wilson Jones building, not feeling like
facing the Warehouse. It had been
Jason’s idea to come into ZeeZee’s, he was a regular there.
Owen hadn’t been too sure because he’d never been in before and had
heard it was an expensive place to drink in.
“Well
yeah, it does cost a bit,” agreed Jason.
“But hell, what’s money for if not for wasting on booze and women?
Besides, I’ve still got a fair bit left from Harding’s shop.
Who’d have guessed that the old fool would have had so much in the
register?”
They’d
been in the club for almost an hour now and were getting quite drunk.
Owen was getting more and more morbid as time went on and Jason was
rapidly loosing patience with him.
“Look
man, I know that you’re screwed up about Mike and I can understand that, but
life goes on. You’re in the
Runners and that means you’re one of the elite.
What more can you hope to get out of this miserable life?”
“I
guess you’re right,” muttered Owen. “Privately
he didn’t agree with Jason in the slightest but he could see that there was no
point in arguing with him. Jason
had a lot of standing in the Runners and Owen didn’t want to alienate him.
He drained the bourbon and stood up, a bit unsteadily.
“Same
again?”
“Yeah,
why not?” replied Jason. “You
want to get me some crisps while you’re at it?
Thanks.”
As
Owen made his way over to the busy bar, Jason looked over the railing, down at
the people on the dance floor below. From
this table he could see most of the club, only the tables directly below him
were hidden from his view. He was
watching a girl dance to the music of SaltLick, a hard rock band, when the doors
to the club swung open and two figures walked in.
One was a female wearing a long trench coat and high black leather boots.
Her hair was tucked into a grey felt hat that had managed to keep its
shape despite the rain but a few strands had escaped its confines. The hair that he could see was a deep red colour and fell in
a gentle wave to below her shoulder. The
woman seemed to be very nervous and unsure of her surroundings, as though she
wasn’t used to places like ZeeZee’s, and looked at her companion for
support.
Standing
beside the woman was one of the biggest humans Jason had ever seen.
He stood close to seven feet tall and was made to look even taller by the
tangled mass of red and blue dreadlocks that sprang up from his head.
He was wearing armour that looked like Blocker Body Armour to Jason
although he was no expert on that kind of thing.
Tartan plaids were slung over his shoulder and a huge sword was resting
on his back. He carried a Blitzer
strapped to his right thigh and a large, ugly looking knife on his left. The helmet for the armour was held in his left hand and the
right hand rested on the butt of the gun.
“Shit,”
muttered Jason. “What the fuck
are Slops doing in here?”
The
two SLA Operatives walked towards the bar on the main floor, the crowd parting
before them. A barman hurried over to talk to them and then pointed across the
club, upwards to where Jason was sitting. The
Frother and the woman looked directly up at Jason, studying him closely, before
making their way across the dance floor towards the stairs that led up to the
next level.
Jason
sat there, shocked that the Operatives could be taking an interest in him and
was jolted from his reverie by Owen returning to the table.
“I
got you some plain crisps ‘cos I didn’t know what flavour you wanted.
That okay for you?”
“We’ve
gotta get out of here,” cried Jason as he jumped to his feet.
“Two Slops just walked in and they’re coming for us!”
“What
the hell are you talking about, man? I
don’t see no Slops in here. I
think you’ve been going a bit heavy on that vodka.”
“We
don’t have time for this shit,” Jason grabbed Owen by the shoulders and
started pushing him through the crowded club.
“I swear that there are Operatives coming up the stairs and they’re
looking for us. The goddam bardog
just pointed directly at me.”
Jason
looked over the railing while he guided his friend through the groups of
drinkers. He could easily see the
huge Frother, pushing his way through the people on the stairs like a swimmer
cutting through a pool.
“Look
man, down there,” he pointed at the Frother.
“That monster and his buddy are coming for us. Fuck knows why but they’re after us. We’ve got to get out of here!”
Jason
was starting to panic, he knew that there was only the one stairway up to this
level and there was no way that they could hope to get past the operatives
coming up it. He was frantically
looking around for some other way down when he saw his chance of escape.
At the four corners of every level was a steel pole that stretched from
ceiling to floor. The pole must have something to do with the structural
integrity of the building but to Jason, they were a stairway to heaven.
“There,”
he told Owen, pointing out the nearest pole.
“We can make it down to the ground using those things.
Simple, we slide down them and ten seconds later we’re out the floor
and home free. I’ll go first, you
follow on behind.”
“But
they’ll see us Jase,” moaned Owen. “Those
guns that the Slops carry ain’t just for show.
We should give ourselves up, we’ll never get out of here in one
piece.”
“You
do what you want, you chicken-shit bastard, but I am out of here!
There’s no fucking way that I’m gonna hang around here waiting for
that junkie in armour to arrest my ass!”
Jason
had reached the pole by this time and he jumped lightly onto the railing that
ran the length of the club. From
here he could see that the Operatives had reached the top level and seen himself
and Owen.
“C’mon
Owen. Get your black ass up here
and let’s get the hell out of this place.”
With
these words, he swung himself over the railing and let his weight carry him down
the pole. Glasses went flying as
his feet crashed onto the barrier that surrounded the mid level and he took a
moment to look upwards, hoping that Owen was following.
He just had time to slide down to the main level as he saw Owen’s boots
dropping down towards him. Seconds
later, Owen joined him.
Screaming
inarticulately, Jason pushed his way through the dancers and ran for the door
that led out of ZeeZee’s. He
could sense Owen running behind him and he slid to a stop as he reached the
door. Owen crashed into his back
and then slipped past him, running out onto the roadway and shouting for Jason
to hurry up.
Something
made Jason stop and look back to where he had been sitting only a few seconds
earlier. He turned just in time to
see the Frother raise a gun and point it at him.
At almost the same instant, the woman grabbed the Frother’s arm and
shouted something at him. Reluctantly,
the man put the gun away and turned back to the stairs.
For a long moment Jason looked up at the woman who he was sure had just
saved his life. She pulled a camera
out of the pocket of her trench coat and quickly took a picture of the shocked
Cloud Runner.
Jason
could see the Frother starting to make his way down the stairs and realised that
he had to get going while he had the chance. He looked back at the woman with
the camera, raised his right hand in a half hearted salute and turned and ran
after Owen.
Outside, the rain was coming down as heavily as ever and Jason could just
see his friend running along a walkway. He
put on a burst of speed and shouted for Owen to wait for him. When he did catch up, the two gang members ran for a nearby
fire escape and then made their way up onto the rooftops. About ten minutes later,, when they had finally stopped
running, Jason slumped down with his back against a wall, gasping for breath.
“Is
there something you’re not telling me?” he panted. “Like why a couples of Slops would be chasing you?”
“What
makes you so damn sure it as me they’re after?” gasped Owed.
“I wasn’t even at the table when the barman pointed you out!
Remember?”
Jason
was too out of breath to reply but what Owen had said made sense.
‘What
if it is me they’re after?’ he thought.
‘What have I done to make the Slops pay attention to me?’
When
they finally managed to get their breath back, Owen and Jason stood up and
looked over the roof tops for any sign of pursuit. High above them a Shiver chopper slowly cruised past, its
huge spotlight crawling over the walkways below it.
They could hear a siren fading into the distance and from somewhere far
below them there was the sound of a muffled gunshot followed by breaking glass.
But nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to suggest that they were still
being followed.
“We
do not tell Danny about this,” said Jason as he turned and headed back in the
direction of the Warehouse. “Hell,
if he knew that we were being chased by a couple of Slops, he’d throw us out
in a second. You know what he’s
like.”
“Fine
by me,” Owen said. “I vote that
we head home and forget that this ever happened.
Okay? I mean, the Operatives
must have made a mistake, it couldn’t have really been us they were looking
for!”
“Yeah,
I guess that that’s the best idea,” answered Jason, sure that this was not
the end of things by a long way.
As
they made their way across the roves, Jason couldn’t get the image of the
woman with the camera out of his head. She’d
saved his live, but why? Why would
an Operative even know that he existed? It
was a long walk back to the Warehouse and when they arrived Jason was even more
confused than before.
********************************************************
This night I have decided to give the termites a treat. This night I will give them a show that they will remember
for a long, long time. The termites
love the violence that surrounds and embraces them, they revel in the depravity
that is forced upon them. It is so
easy to become jaded when blood and pain constantly surround you, so the showman
must strive for ever greater heights, must seek something new for the dulled
palate of his customers. I am the
ultimate showman so I must produce the ultimate show.
This is the burden that my pupils have placed upon me, since I took up
the mantle of showman I must always impress them. If, even once, I fail my audience, the audience will leave
me. My pupils will flee the
classroom and I will be forgotten, forgotten and alone.
This
night I will show the termites that those they view as heroes are no different
from anyone else. The heroes strut
through the city streets, arrogant with their guns in their hands and their
false knowledge in their heads. The
heroes think that they know so much of how the world works but they are the
blindest of all its inhabitants. These
Corporate Killers think that they are the most dangerous creatures in Mort, but
how little they know. An Operative
will be my next victim, an advanced lesson in fear for the pupils of my class.
This
night my pupils will know that the strongest of them can fall as easily as the
weakest and the thrill of fear will run through them, will galvanise them.
For a short time they will be alive with emotions, they will be glad for
the life that they have. Instead of
crying over their pitiful existence they will be thankful that they were not the
ones chosen to fall before my blade.
This
night I will walk through the rain soaked streets of the city.
I will make Downtown my hunting ground but I will not prey upon those who
live in Downtown. No, this night I
will make an example of one who belongs elsewhere, one who wears the badge of a
SLA Operative. Operatives could be
so much more than they are. They
have the training and the knowledge to rise above the filth and the squalor of
violence but instead they glory in it, wallow in the blood and pain that
surrounds them. They could be angels amongst men but are nothing more than
dogs, dogs trained to attack on command and then grovel at the feet of their
master. These dogs will lower
themselves to whatever level is necessary to receive a word of praise from the
one who hold their chains, the one who feeds them when they have behaved and the
one who will chastise them if they fail.
This
night one of Slayer’s dogs will not return to the kennel.
Will it be mourned by Slayer? I
think not. It will be missed however, and there will be repercussions
because of its death. Slayer does
not care for the life of a single Operative any more than you care about a
single hair on your head, but he does care that someone will have dared to take
that which belongs to him. It will
have to be investigated and the criminal will have to be punished for his
audacity. The investigations will
not be a difficult one because I will make it quite clear who destroyed
Slayer’s dog. The punishment will
be more difficult to deliver.
This
night I will be seen by many, many pupils.
I will make the kill in a public place where the lesson can be seen and
vividly remembered. My chosen
victim is going to die in front of the cameras.
His death will be seen first by those who are fortunate enough to be in
my chosen killing ground and then by the billions who spend their lives in front
of the vid. For a short time I will
brighten the lives of people all across Mort and they will be thankful for the
excitement. They will see the death
and the pain that could so easily have befallen any one of them and they will
know that it is good to be alive. They
will know what fear is.
This
night, an Operative will die.