And now for more emotional bullshit...

 This is called 'Detour', wrote it about an hour ago.

Living pill to pill, hand to mouth.

Just trying to feel half-decent in the now.

More pills than I count, more names than I can recall,

I have wanted nothing more than to ditch them all.

I had one year of feeling normal with little medication.

Being happy, finally finding results to my supplication.

At age eighteen in my senior year.

It all felt right, it all seemed clear.

Happy to be myself in situations that used to scare,

Left emotional hell and never thought I'd be back there.

It refused to last, it refused to stick.

I was back to rock bottom far too quick.

If you're asking me, it's just not worth the toil.

Fighting eight years of hell just for one that doesn't spoil.

I have my ups and I have my downs,

Why can't I just figure this shit out?

I'd say I'm coasting but that would imply progression,

I'd say I'm spinning my wheels but I'm stuck with depression,

Another year has come and gone,

There's little that has been improved upon.

I say I'm all right when there's a smile to don,

I say it's all right when I'm all wrong.

What feelings are real, it's getting hard to tell.

Which smiles are real and which ones do I sell?

Force a laugh, force a smile.

Keeping up my facade all the while.

You ask me how I am, I say I'm okay

I could be better if I could find my way,

The truth is that I've seen better days.

Saying I'm fine is just easier to say.

Primary inspiration came from a really well crafted video on youtube called 'Perfect Stranger' which pairs up Lightning and Fang from FFXIII-- the important part is it's awesome and the song Cells by The Servant struck me and gave me an internal rhythm to put my words to paper, so to speak.

You can watch Perfect Stranger here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ7kAz-PFNs

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming...

For something that isn't RFTA related. It's still something I wrote but it was a demon I needed to exorcise.

So, this is "Sidewinder":

You hurt me, but I can't get too mad

You're the most precious thing I've ever had.

You showed me all the things I didn't see.

Instead what I was not, what I couldn't be

You did so much for me in just a few months

More than fifteen years of prescription drugs.

My life opened up when you took my hand,

But you took it away for reasons I can't understand

You knew me so much better than I ever could,

I'd have said you'd never do this but apparently you would.

I'm grateful for all you've done to help me along,

I'm just sick of wondering what went wrong.

There's no way you could tell yourself I'd take it well,

You had to know that losing you would put me through hell.

I needed you and thats why I called and wrote.

For nearly a year I waited and I hoped.

You cut me off when you had become air I breathe,

I'm still not over you and everything you've done for me.

Was temptation too much or was it something else?

Was it an emergency decision to protect yourself?

So I was left with denial for almost a year,

My friends telling me things I refused to hear

You were so much, the kindest soul I have ever met.

You call yourself a hedonist, do you have room for regret?

So I'm still stuck, telling the same sob story to every new friend

About how much you helped me and how painfully you made it end.

You knew I would not weather it well, that I would fall right to the concrete

Knowing I'd go down face first and have my heart smeared on the street.

That I'd be in a downward spiral I could not escape,

That I'd hit rock bottom and that I would break.

I write this shit in circles, I know I've written this all before.

About how much I miss you and the internal war

It's been too long and I still see you in everything,

From drinks to cigarettes and words that are said to me.

I still remember the conversations we had every day

I just never realized how it would be when they were taken away.

I'm only able to be angry you did this to me, put me through hell

Because you were there to show me how to respect myself.

You meant more to me than anyone else, I just want you back,

I can't figure out how to hate you when I love you like that.

It still hurts and I don't think I'll ever really get over what we had,

When I fucking love you this much how the hell can I stay mad?

What does it say when I can't escape being reminded of you?

My only comfort is knowing that where-ever you are, this is the truth:

You have these pains and you're unable to stop seeing me in everything, too.

That concludes "Sidewinder" and we now return you to waiting for me to actually work on more RFTA.

A Meeting With Mister Rothschild

(Some words: This takes place after a major plot point and it's up to you to figure out what happened until such time as I actually manage to write that event out but it should be somewhat easy to piece together given context clues. This is the first draft and as such it is subject to change.)

Rothschild woke slowly, city lights moving past him in a blur. Everything was a blur, actually. As he lay there, slumped over, he began to puzzle out he was in a moving vehicle. The last thing he could remember was being placed in the vault-like room under protective custody of the Juno LED. There was nothing in the air but the faint background hum of Repulsotech engines radiating through the body of the car.

"Where am I?" Rothschild slurred slightly, finding his lip had split open somewhere between what he last remembered and where he was now. The was no answer but his eyes began to adjust and after several moments blinking he could make out the cage wall between the front and back half of the vehicle. "Where am I?" he asked again, his eyes straining to resolve the silhouette of an officer behind the wheel, the lines of his jaw and neck subtly lit by the light from the intrument panel. Rothschild waited quite a time before trying again "Where am I?" He then decided to get more specific "Where are we going? Where are you taking me? Where am I?"

That was about as long as it took for officer to sigh and shake his head, the light from the console reflecting off of his badge. "You sure do ask a lot of stupid questions." the officer spoke, eyes on the open sky ahead.

"Stupid questions? I just want to know what happened!" Rothschild growled, kicking at the base of the cage to convery his frustration.

The officer remained calm, almost cold, "You were taken into protective custody of the Juno L-E-D."

"I remember that part!"

"Then we had to move you."

"Why did you have to drug me?"

"That's not drugs, that's gas from a pacification gas grenade."

Rothschild paused, thinking about that for a moment. "Why did you have to gas me?"

The officer chuckled ever-so-lightly, "I didn't, I just thought it would make things more... exciting."

"Exciting? What are you talking about? I want to speak to your sector chief, right now! I have rights!"

"Mm. We all have rights, some more than others. Don't worry about my sector chief, I'll introduce you personally when we get there."

"How much longer?"

"Long enough for you to consider your rights."

The officer angled the car into a smooth dive, moving downward through the levels of the third tier. The trip there was filled with more questions but the officer had decided to go silent again, remaining stoic in response to Rothschild's growing frustration and insults that should have introduced a fist into his jaw. The LED vehicle swam through traffic, the Repulsortech engines thrumming in relation to the directions the vehicle took. It was the late evening, now, but the flashy lights and ad-panes lit the sky well enough to read by. Passing into the second tier, the officer keyed something in on the console and the pane nestled into a curve in the dash lit up with plenty of bright lights to illuminate the officer's profile. From where Rothschild had managed to end up he could see deep red hair, just a few inches in length, upon the officer's head and the faintest glint of light off of one incisor, exposed by a broad grin.

* * *

Down on the mid-level streets in tier two stood two men in light coats, leaning against a support pillar for an upper roadway, their eyes watchful.

"Where the hell is he? Showing my face this high in the city ain't exactly healthy, you know. Can't wait here all night." said the man in a red, imitation leather jacket with a cycle shop's fading logo upon the back.

The man in the grey-green coat grunted, "Grow some balls, already, he'll be here in a minute, he just crossed into tier two."

"I'm just saying I got enemies, people that don't like me."

"Nobody likes you, you're an asshole."

"I know, I think that should underline the dedication I'm showing here."

"You'd kill for her. You'd kill me for her, if she said it was the next step."

"I ... yeah, I probably would but I'm saying she's the only reason I'm here."

From above the hum of Repulsortech engines, mixed with non-Repulsortech engines, died down and things grew quiet. A lamp mounted high on the support pillar flickered and died just as a Juno LED vehicle took a slow, careful sweep around the far side of it, moving slowly as the landing struts beneath it withdrew and the suspension system lowered to put rubber on the ground. Coasting to a halt before the two men, the officer behind the wheel studied them for a few moments.

"Show him the fuckin' thing!" said the man in grey-green.

Following instruction the man in the red jacket pulled a scuffed card from his pocket and held it out before him.

"And remember, we don't fuck with him, I know you probably want to beat him to death but that isn't happening."

"Yeah, I know. I'm on my best behavior."

Seeing the card the officer finally killed the power to the engine systems on the vehicle and opened the door to step out of it. Sighing, Phoenix ran his hand back over his head, through his hair before studying the two men. The card was legitemate so he knew he had the right people but he wanted desperately to be in a position where he could do the hand-off himself.

Glancing into the back of the vehicle, Phoenix looked Rothschild over. "He's still a bit out of it, he got some alone-time with some pacification gas for a couple of minutes."

The man in the grey-green coat nodded and looked at the man as well. "Piece of shit looks even more punchable in person."

Phoenix rubbed at his eyes with the side of his hand, "And you haven't been listening to him rant and bitch for twenty minutes."

"That does sound pretty fucking awful," the man in the red jacket spoke up, "I'm gonna get the truck."

"Double-check that fuckin' cable." the other man called out to him as he walked away.

"Yea, yea, I know, I don't want this motherfucker slipping away." the man in the red leather jacket said as he walked down the roadway.

"Scarborough is down there?" Phoenix asked, glancing along the roadway.

The man in the grey-green coat nodded "He looks a fuck of a lot better than he did the last time I saw him and... well, that's a pretty fucking strong statement, all things considered."

"How is she?"

"Good, we think, we haven't seen to much of her since things went down but she's there, safe," he paused a moment "With him, I mean. They're both there."

"Tell him I wish I could've delivered the scumfuck myself. I really wish I could be there to see it."

"It's going to get messy, for sure. Probably worse than anything the Red Star has done in a few years."

"Scarborough seems pretty okay for, you know, everthing that happened."

"He's... really going to make it count. He's only keeping it together for her, right now."

"Same goes for a lot of us in the Red Star. She ain't like their mother or something but there's a lot of them who don't even understand why she gives a shit about any of them."

Phoenix turned his head to look into the rear of the vehicle as he slipped his hands into his pockets. "Anderson really must believe him."

"Fucking hell he should, right? You need to know your men in that job, know who you trust to do things without cutting corners or who has a conscience." the man in the coat replied, turning to look at Rothschild as well.

Rothschild squirmed under the scrutiny, turning himself away from them and Phoenix shook his head. "Yea, I just know that the man he believes isn't exactly who he used to be, now."

The faint whine of a hydrogen cell engine began to creep into earshot as the man in the grey-green coat furrowed his brows. "Yea, I imagine he knows. Anderson has to understand what he's doing here."

"He's not stupid, certainly, I'm sure he knows exactly what is going to happen... I just never get used to seeing people actually give a damn. It struck me, the risk he's taking, and he isn't asking for anything. What's your name anyway?"

"Ridge, it was, but try not to spread it around. I imagine Anderson'll get something out of it before it's all over." Ridge replied, watching the beaten up cargo truck climb the incline of the roadway to where it levelled off, coming to a stop near the pillar.

"Let's get this done." Phoenix spoke, pulling his hands from his pockets to pull the stun-stick from his belt. "Get the restraints ready."

* * *

"Mister Scarborough-- Officer? We just arrived, we sent the package to the showers." spoke Ridge, shaking off a bit of the corrosive dribble from outside. It was a smart move, it had a lot of drains.

"S'allright, Ridge, you can just call me Ash. I remember reading your K-I-A when I had just gotten out of the academy." Ash resplied, standing up from what was once a half-decent chair.

"How is she?"

"Better," Ash said, placing his hand on Ridge's arm as he passed him. "She's doing a lot better."

"I know she has made some cold decisions for the Red Star in the past but... I am not sure how she'd respond, if she knew."

"She knows, Ridge. She never even brought up the idea of stopping it." Ash shook his head as he left the room.

Following a few steps behind, Ridge continued the conversation, "Then she knows there's no way to keep you from it."

"Doesn't mean she likes it."

"I'm not sure why she wouldn't..."

"Because as much as I do it for myself it's all still for her, because of her, because of this whole fucking mess."

"So it's not that she doesn't want it to happen, it's that you're doing it on her behalf, then?"

"Yea, that sounds about right. I know she could do it herself but I want this. I just need to know it won't happen again. I have to make sure, with my own fucking hands."

Stepping through a large hole in the wall that served as an entrance when rust had claimed an old metal door, Ash passed into the storage area of the base. His expression was hollow, his eyes lacking any emotions, not even the anger that burned incessantly for days. He was pale, clearly deprived of sleep, word was that he could only sleep when she watched over him. Her shouts had been overheard, demanding him to eat something, to sleep along with her instead of watching over her like a hawk while she slept. Ash began to rifle through large bins of tools and fabrication materials, occasionally pulling pieces out.

"Officer 'Nix said he wished he could do the hand-off himself, that he could see it." Ridge said after a long few moments of silence amidst Ash's rummaging.

"I bet he does," Ash said, pulling an angle grinder from a bin stained with grease and dirt. "He's never seen me really lose it before last week. I don't know if he's curious or if he just wants to see how I go about things."

"I couldn't say." Ridge responded

Ash swept the gathered items off the table into a large bucket and began to toss parts into it a piece at a time as he continued to rummage. "I need to be alone, now," he said as he pulled a heavy wrench from a metal box pushed into a corner. Ash then cocked his head and stood upright "Wait, go tell Marie I asked for one of her cigarettes, get one, then get that big bottle of alcohol I saw in the kitchen area this mornng. In that order, she doesn't need to know."

* * *

The lighting in the showers was poor, a couple of lightrods couldn't decided if they were going to stay on or off and the others had just grown dim over time. There was a constant sound of dripping water in the background, some faucet or pipe somewhere needed to be patched up but it would likely just cause another leak somewhere else in the pipes. It smelled unpleasant but given the location of the base it was actually much better than all the alternatives. Rothschild struggled, the metal of his bindings clattering against the eye-bolt driven into the wall behind him. He sat on a folding chair that had rusted too much to fold at all anymore, his ankles chained tightly to two similar eye-bolts buried in the floor. It wasn't long after he was restrained there that he had began to yell as best he could around the rag stuffed in his mouth. It was dirty with grime and grease, the scent of metal all over it. There were likely some metal shavings embedded in it but that was the least of Rothschild's worries at the moment.

From the end of the hall, Ash rounded the corner carrying the heavy bucket by the handle with one hand and a large bottle of liquor in his right. There was a length of cord looped over his shoulder and his expression was colder than ice. His eyes had narrowed as he approached, his steps finally reaching Rothschild's ears, causing him to turn and look awkwardly down the hallway at Ash as he approached. Each step was a thunderous crash in the silence that suffocated everything when recognition had dawned on Rothschild. Every step made him flinch, his eyes unable to decide if they were trying to plead or just unable to stay on Ash as he approached. Each step rose in volume as Ash neared and the sound was something Rothschild was sure would leave his ears bleeding-- until Ash dropped the bucket to the floor.

Rothschild jumped, his fight to escape his bonds kick-started by the sound of tools clattering. He could no longer look at Ash, his eyes shut tight as he cried out with effort and hope that somehow, something might just give him enough room to get free, to flee and run, run, run. Hope was never in great suppy in Esther, it was unmistakably absent from the Gutter. Ash slowly tossed the cord aside and walked across the room to a row of mostly broken sinks, placing a single clove cigarette upon the rim of one with a worn, nearly dead lighter. From there Ash took hold of the bottle and wrenched the cap off in one rough twist, sending it skittering across the floor and into a circle as it caught the angle of the floor around one of the many sunken drains. Uprighting the bottle, Ash stepped away from the sink and took a long pull from the bottle.

Fire blossomed in his throat, more than he was experienced with, but he swallowed another mouthful, then another and another so that it felt like his throat had been scoured with acid and then set on fire atop all of that. Like he had downed raw, molten steel, it was enough to make his eyes water and make him cough raggedly after taking the bottle from his mouth. Casually, Ash set the bottle down in one of the good sinks, letting it rest in the corner of the basin and stood before Rothschild until he finally summoned the courage to look up. Ash's eyes were the most piercing and terrifying thing he could imagine and it fueled his desperate movements that had caused the metal to bite into his skin and make him bleed.

"Artur Rothschild." Ash said, at last and Rothschild flinched, looking up in a moment of pause. "I remember you. Your name, anyway." Ash began, his arms crossing over his chest as he leaned back against the tiled wall. "When I was in the avademy, I think that was when I first heard it. A real good example of just how much you can get away with if you have enough money and your parents are influential at all. Must've grown up pretty good, never had to want for anything, right?" Ash didn't even bother to let Rothschild try and speak, it was more rhetorical than anything, Ash didn't give a fuck about his upbringing. "All that potential, so many open doors and you end up convicted of more counts of rape, sexual assault, and murder than I can even fucking remember. I just remember yelling 'Bullshit!' when they let you out.

"So you walk and the victims-- the ones you let live-- lose their peace of mind and faith in the whole human race. You see, Artur, a person can care-- a person can make a difference... but people, people just don't give a fuck. People will never fail to let you down and so many people were let down when they let you fucking walk out of there. I don't know how the fuck you managed to even do anything but wait for someone to fucking kill you." Ash had a good idea, it involved a lot of private security and very dense security measures. "I mean, it was clear that no one with a badge was allowed to touch you, right?" Ash waited there for a few moments, before Rothschild made a confused sound around the rag in his mouth. "Good fucking point, good fucking point." Ash said, nodding his head.

"Juno and anyone employed by them seem to be unable to even lift a fucking finger. How fortunate that they took you into protective custody immediately after you were found." Ash went on, shaking his head, his hands falling to his sides. "It makes it hard to do the job, Artur, when we know people like you get away-- literally-- with murder and worse. It's like 'What's the fucking point of even doing this?' 'Why the fuck did I have to go to the academy, through all that training if we're never going to use it?'. But no, you, you're untouchable to Juno, your parents can make things happen, Artur. With all that money and the favors-- or hell-- they can bring people you just get to remain untouchable to anyone employed by Juno, anyone with a badge." Ash stopped, moving back across the room to take another large gulp from the bottle, setting it down once more.

As Ash turned around something clattered and skidded across the floor, coming to rest in front of Rothschild. Rothschild looked down, trying to follow it, trying to discern what it was before it came to a stop. Glinting in the light, it stared him in the face while Ash stared at him. Slowly Rothschild swallowed, looking at the badge on the floor and the clear block letters. JUNO. Looking up quickly, Rothschild met Ash's gaze and there was silence again. An unbearable tension fell between them and Ash narrowed his cold gaze on Rothschild.

Ash spoke softly, almost quietly, the words landing on Rothschild like lead weights "I quit,"

[REVISION] Firefight/Zero-Five

It had only been a few days since Ash and Phoenix were notified, with enthusiasm, that they were being pulled into the Juno Military Division for an anonymous operation. The Sector Chief, Matthias Anderson, had held a meeting with unrestrained excitement. “We're not cops today, we're soldiers.” he had said as if he had spent time coming up with that sentence. He was right, however, and all standing officers in The XXXXXX Sector (#) were quickly tossed into the military ranks. There was one full day of training and proficiency exams but it was not much of a chore as the law-enforcement training was not far from military training under Juno command. After all officers had cleared their training and exams they were swiftly packed into the bunks at the Demons Nest. The name came from the fact that all of the tilt-rotor aircraft had been named after demons in old texts but whatever importance those texts really had was quickly forgotten. It was an intimidating name for an intimidating craft and the things it could bring along with it.

The bunks weren't actually that bad, the air was a bit stale and reeked of oil and metal but the beds were somewhat comfortable. Many of the officers Ash and Phoenix were fairly good friends with, the ones who weren't complete dicks and seemed to have a bit of humanity left in them, somewhere. Phoenix hunched over, sitting on the edge of a bunk as he told a story about his high-school Magnaball career (bending truths as far as one could without lying) that he gave up on and occasionally those gathered would laugh as he recounted some stupid stunt. That was what Ash felt about Magnaball, it was just full of stupid stunts. It took skill, intelligence, and endurance but it was also far more complex than it needed to be. It was the the sport that dominated Espher and every sector had their own team to compete. Phoenix was about to go into the story about the full-field charge that had won the next-to-last game of his high-school career, by the sounds of it, when the lighting in the room flickered red.

Sirens wound up and began to howl out from myriad locations, the call to scramble and assemble, and the room exploded into life. Everyone hastily grabbed their gear and checked their weapons before dashing out into the hall and joining the chain of soldiers on their way to the landing pads. Phoenix managed to beat Ash out of the door by only two seconds but he caught up and ran beside him. “Any idea what we're doing?” Phoenix asked, shouting over the sirens. Ash shook his head and tightened one of the straps on his assault webbing. As they flew out the door they stood upon the roof of the The Demons Nest, nine large octagonal pads connected to the roof, each supporting a large, intimidating tilt-rotor armed and ready to go.

“Haborym! Pad five!” Shouted one of the military officers, directing soldiers (drafted and enlisted alike) to their crafts by the insignias on their helmets. Ash and Phoenix dashed along with their rifles slung low and approached the Haborym tilt-rotor. The tilt-rotor was not the cutting edge of military technology but it was a solid machine. It was capable of adapting to innumerable roles from air-support to personnel carrier to medevac duty and a dozen other tasks. Haborym was equipped with a chin-mounted flamethrower, a large Vulcan cannon under its left wing and a missile pod that promised to rain hell beneath the right wing. Ash and Phoenix dashed up the steps to the landing pad and climbed in, sitting down and immediately strapping in alongside other members of Haborym Squad.

The members of Haborym squad had assembled and Lt. Green stepped onto the landing skid and banged his hand against the hull of the aircraft. “We're clear, Baker, lift-off!” and with that the turbine blades whirled into life, whining as they increased in power and began to pull the heavy craft from the landing pad. Lt. Green climbed in and strapped himself down in the middle of the squad, his eyes watching a monitor set in the roof just before him. The craft angled and gravity tugged hard as the tilt-rotor wings began to angle forward, dipping the nose of the aircraft downward as it began to accelerate forward.

“All right, listen up. I don't care if you're new to this, I don't tolerate fuck-ups! We have orders and we carry them out, we do not hesitate, we do not have mercy, we follow our orders to the letter and that is how we get back home alive.” Lieutenant Green began, eyes scanning the lot of them. Watanabe was an enlisted soldier and a demolitions expert who had a face like it was etched in granite. O'Neil was another enlisted soldier, a heavy-weapons specialist with rust colored hair and an enormous model 33A Heavy Support Weapon cradled in his arms.

The next enlisted soldier was 'Prizrak', a man with an uncanny ability to disappear from sight, his Russian blood had influenced his nickname and he had long-since given up on writing it in Russian, he stuck to phonetics. The specialist Shaina Oaks was a last-minute addition to their roster, she had a record (and kill count) that did not let one think she was anything but magic with her rifle and she cradled it affectionately while wiping down the barrel out of some form of habit. The non-enlisted, law-enforcement officers on the team were few/ Cortez, a decent cop but a bit of a slacker, Martin, a mussy-haired youth who had just recently graduated to becoming an officer. Then there was Ash and Phoenix.

The staggered, high-reaching layout of Espher began to expose itself as the craft shot out of Espher airspace and toward the outer lying settlements that existed mostly on small trade companies moving food, water, and other goods to the settlements for barter. “All right, listen up. We are on a search and retrieve mission at Oscar-Sierra-Zero-Five. We have received information that indicates possible illegal weapons manufacture. We will turn over every single rock until we are sure we have obtained every suspicious item and firearm above Oscar-Sierra defense rating.” Lieutenant Green explained. Put simply, they were going to take any firearm or other weapon that was capable of being used as what was labeled an assault weapon. The bands of raiders made settlement defense mandatory but sometimes the residents got a bit overzealous with their weaponry.

“Zero-Five? Making weapons? The last time I was there it was basically a fence around a pile of dirt.” O'Neill spoke, shaking his head at the thought.

“Correct, our intelligence is solid on this, we have satellite imaging to back this up. Doesn't seem like we get the luxury of seeing them going on what I received in my briefing.” replied Lt. Green, rubbing his jaw.

“Crazier shit happens.” spoke Watanabe, double-checking his kit and adjusting his combat augmentation brace around his right wrist.

“Sounds like a pretty easy operation. Where the hell did everyone else scramble to, Lieutenant?” Cortez inquired, his hands resting on his knees.

“On their own operations, we were briefed separately,” Lt. Green spoke and then craned his neck to look toward the interior of the cockpit. “Baker! ETA!”

Baker turned his head, looking far too large with the helmet that sealed around his head. He spoke with a hiss of static over the com-buds in their ears. “ETA Two mikes.” .

“I want a report when we're thirty seconds out!” Lt. Green shouted.

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant Green.” Baker responded, turning back around to face forward, the cables running from his helmet and to the various parts of the cockpit making a somewhat odd move.

“What kind of weapons are we talking about? Are they still using cartridges or did they manage to find a way to manufacture caseless ammunition?” Marin inquired, nodding toward his rifle upon mention of the latter type of ammunition.

“They didn't say but given how urgent these orders were marked I'd say it's something big, something bad.” Lt. Green responded.

“We haven't heard a word about any tech going missing.” Ash chimed in.

“Yea, it must be under-wraps if anything. I don't think they'd publicize it.” Phoenix spoke.

“You would have only been notified if the missing tech had been discovered before it left the city. They neutralized the tracing chip just a bit outside the city. We don't know which way they went, that's got to be the reason they're calling us all in.” said Lt. Green as he looked up at the pane displaying mission objectives.

“We'll have this done in no time.” Piotr spoke with only the vaguest hint of an accent, inspecting his knives for any hint of nicks or scratches.

Shaina, it seemed, was fine staying silent. In fact, her eyes were closed in what could only be assumed to be some sort of mental preparation for the operation if things went south.

“Thirty seconds, Lieutenant!” . Baker spoke, his eyes obscured by dark tinted, bulbous curves of a visor. “Hold on that, Lieutenant. I'm being told that the operation has changed, HQ wants to make sure you acknowledge it.” . The lot of them moved to angle their heads to look up at the pane but few had a good enough seat to see what it said entirely. After a moment of thought Green nodded “Tell them I recognize the change in the operation and it will be done as commanded.”

“Yes, sir.” . Baker said, swinging his head back to the front and speaking into the microphone adjacent to his mouth.

“Listen up!” Lt. Green barked. “We have a change in plans. This is no longer search and retrieve, Zero-Five is hot. Scout drones have confirmed other settlements have engaged the squads designated to them. Weapons at the ready, we're going to soften Zero-Five up a bit before we drop!”

“What the hell? They're -engaging- Juno Military?” Shaina said, incredulous, breaking her long silence.

“Command confirms it. We do not know their full capability so we are treating them as if they are capable of taking down Haborym, here,” Lt. Green said, nodding in indication of their transport. “I don't think they have anything but this isn't Magnaball, we don't gamble on one soldier carrying the entire squad to victory.”

“We have visual, Zero-Five nearing combat range.” , Baker hissed into their ears.

“Lock down your weapon and grab your braces.” Lieutenant Green ordered, motioning with his hands in case he was not audible.

“Cycling Vulcan” static spat in their ears ad the large rotary gun on the left wing began to spin up and whir. “Breaking the seals on the pod and arming missiles.” Baker continued, the three rectangular boxes under the right wing blowing the protective covering off to expose dozens of angry missiles. “Test burst on the flamethrower.” there was a pause “Engaging strafing run.”

The rotary cannon began to angle and track as the craft accelerated to attack speed. The Vulcan came to life with a meaty growl as the barrels rotated, spitting death upon the settlement. Vulcan rounds stitched their way across the settlement and cut people apart as they flew through. Delayed explosive rounds quickly began to detonate behind them as they moved to make another pass. Ash could not help but realize how little resistance he could see in the settlement. Perhaps somewhere under that corrugating, rated metal lurked anti-aircraft or anti-personnel weaponry, maybe they didn't have enough time to fully ready their defenses. On the second pass two missiles hissed and shot forward before angling sharply and accelerating with large bursts of flame behind them, sending them swiftly to their targets.

The Vulcan cannon once more stitched across buildings and everything in the settlement. Ash could see blood in the dirt, a lot. As they neared he realized the blood was the upper-body of a man who had been blown into two pieces by a delayed explosive round. As the craft hooked around sharply, Ash and Phoenix as well as Shaina were treated to the view of two missiles impacting the bases of watch towers that were unmanned. They fell quickly and another buzz of chain-explosions went off as the delayed explosive rounds lodged in the buildings and ground began to detonate. Hooking back in, Baker brought them in low, the chin-mounted barrels of the flamethrower spewing fire along their path. Missiles began to emerge from the missile pods just an inch as they were locked onto targets. The Vulcan continued spraying as they moved through the settlement and the weapon tore a line straight across the settlement.

“Missiles locked, cover-fire for the drop!” Baker yelled.

“We appreciate it!” Lr. Green shouted back and began to retrieve his weapon, everyone else following his example.

“Sir I don't see any dangerous weapon installations.” Ash spoke, squinting and trying to make more detail of the settlement as they curled around it.

“Just waiting for us to drop,” Lt. Green replied “That cover-fire is going to shit all over their plan.”

“If you say so, Lieutenant, I don't see anyone armor at all.”

“Noted, Scarborough. Get focused. Everyone make sure your combat augmentation brace is in the right place!”

Following the command they all aligned their CABs with their wrists and then stood up, hooking themselves to the tilt-rotor in preparation to drop. From the right side of the craft eight to ten missiles fired off in the same instant. Missiles shot down and then arced up sharply before pin-pointing their targets from their locked-in angles. The missiles hit simultaneously and explosions tore through the settlement, sending shrapnel, earth, and human debris into the air. As the explosions began the team leapt from the craft and rode their rappel lines down, slowed sharply as the automatic system minimized the impact before releasing them. Six hit the ground in the first descent, followed by three more in the second and they rushed to the walls of the settlement, ducking behind cover as explosions pounded through their bodies and the heat rose before them. A rain of whickering shrapnel and remains begin to fall as a woman's scream was cut short by the last missile hit. Falling debris rained over the settlement and the squad alike, their kinetic barriers causing it to deflect and fall elsewhere.

“Let's go!” shouted Lieutenant Green, shoving his fist forward through the air.

[REVISION] Welcome To The Gutter (pt.1)

The most Ash had seen of The Gutter was in pursuit of fleeing suspects or perpetrators and in most cases suspects were the perpetrators. He had to say it looked much better when it was passing by at high speeds. Even then, the chases were through the upper tiers of it all where there were roads and air-routes for vehicles, this place was buried under infrastructure. 

Law enforcement wasn't a science, really, but tags (or 'chips') had really helped to track or identify crimes in progress. They certainly let you know if your fleeing suspect had any criminal history with only a seconds time spent scanning their birth tag. When convicted and sentenced your chip was updated and a lot of places above The Cloud flat-out refused to admit anyone with anything more than mild criminal charges on their tag, and good luck moving up in the workforce.

Before him he saw darkness barely lit with flickering lightrods, enormous pillars and columns, and nothing overhead except the constant drip of fluid and a deep darkness that swallowed up any hope of actually seeing past the first five tiers above you. There were spots that were completely uncovered, where one could almost see the sickly coloration of The Cloud in the daylight. The same Cloud that drizzled a constant rain of poisonous chemicals absorbed from the pre-regulation power-plants still chugging along, this was not that part of The Gutter. 

Just how toxic that fluid was was up for debate but he was sure it would burn a hole through his arm. The power-plants were long-since brushed off by The Obelisk and served more to power the lower tiers and The Gutter. A rough cycle, it was power and pollution or giving up almost everything in hopes the air-scrubbers would be able to filter out The Cloud over some reasonable amount of time.

The air here was perpetually damp and smelled quite a deal worse than anything Ash had experienced. Fluid ran down every column, pillar, and building, glistening in what little light there was. Mold grew copiously and strange fungi and fat-capped mushrooms grew along the ruined streets as the fluids ran along toward some spot ahead. 

The elevator had placed him at the corner of what was once a street, kept in better condition as it rarely brought anyone down except JPD equipment or forces and the two mounted sentry-guns were also a good deterrent for anyone thinking about attacking law enforcement or Juno personnel within the large range of the weapons.

Ash sighed, looking around and finding himself with little choice in which direction he traveled as the other had been barricaded by walls of JPD barriers. Walking along the remains of what was, at best, a path Ash sidestepped and jumped breaks in the cement and asphalt, he didn't want the pooling of those fluids to ruin his boots. He was moving toward the JPD outpost, guided partially by a map he had checked on his hub and signs spray-painted onto the large pillars, high and out of reach of those who tagged all the empty space there was. 

His shoulder-lamp helped expose the graffiti, some of the work was impressive, actually. He had seen some incredibly realistic work along a cement wall, it surely took someone months to complete. He wasn't sure how you managed to stay in one place so long and stay alive, here. Ash wondered, faintly, if Marie had ever seen the work of the young artists here. He had a fleeting thought of the two of them coming up with some sort of education scholarship for gifted artists trapped down here since birth, but with the direction things were heading with 'art' these days he wasn't so sure that would be a good idea. High up, the pillar markings guided him down the road.

Ash had to remind himself that this place was nothing like the other tiers of the city. There was a dramatic change between The Bottom Rung and the second tier and up that he had experience with. This was the the worst part of the worst tiers, this was where savagery was as common as everything else. It was not a stretch for people to be slaughtering each other here, JPD never touched it. Once the Ob' realized that The Gutter was completely useless and stopped observation and patrol. People often fled here in hopes of escape but they never seemed to understand that just because they had come here that JPD would not pursue them.

 In quite a lot of cases the fleeing suspects were killed by the people that lived in The Gutter. You can only run so far through the poorest part of the city in your nice clothes and accessories before you were robbed of them, usually without bothering asking before they just killed you. As awful as it was, it was pretty damn convenient when it came to wrapping things up. No one had to go to jail, no one had to be interviewed, so much of the paperwork vanished when the suspect was murdered in The Gutter. Ash and Phoenix had seen horrible things here but they had not been to the Bottom Rung where sense was apparently absent from everyone-- or so the stories told.

It took several minutes of walking before he finally began to encounter people-- and they were barely that. The whine of the spinning barrels on his weapon had kept the smart ones away, those that remained were incapable of fleeing. The first man had been half-slumped against a pillar with vomit in his lap an a busted bottle of liquor that Ash was pretty sure was home-made. The man bled slightly from his mouth as he leaned there and his unfocused eyes followed Ash as he passed. 

The man did not make any moves so Ash was comfortable passing him even though he figured a bullet would be a more human solution for improving the mans life. He had come across junkies and addicts cooking up extremely crude forms of Spark, named so because it was very easy to explode if one was cooking a potent batch. The smell was what gave it away, it was an acrid thing that was distinct and left you wanting to spit until the taste and smell of it were gone. The barrels of the ScumThumper apparently did not reach their ears or they were just more interested in the Spark.

Looking at them briefly he could see that each of them had their eyes open wide as the one man worked on cooking the batch up. Hungry faces, desperate to escape their surroundings no matter how much it damaged them. Some time down the line they would die from their addiction but that wasn't a bad option in this place. The most clear symbol of addiction was the perpetually dry mouth. Lips cracked constantly, bleeding from the tears in the skin and their tongues were like dry sponges in their own mouths. 

Their speech would be affected by it and their teeth were quickly worn away as the drug wore the enamel away and then the teeth until they were completely gone. Recovered addicts could not eat solid foods well, if at all, and if they didn't have the money to have their teeth replaced they just lived that way with their scar-strewn lips and damaged brains.

The most unnerving part of this all was just how dark it really was. There were lightrods overhead but they lacked the power to properly illuminate anything. It was constantly dim and every line of lightrods seemed to be illuminating to a different degree than any of the others. Commonly he would come across the putrid smell of decay and rot where he was sure there was a corpse somewhere-- if he bothered to look for it. He didn't. 

Graffiti was exceedingly present and some of it was clearly the brown stain of dried blood. The gangs here had skirmishes and he could see the (poorly done) symbol of the Acid Eaters. A mouth full of sharp teeth cracking their way through a pipe or other object that was always marked with the common cautionary labels for dangerous chemicals. He had seen it done much better than this, this was just crude and off. If he was in the territory of the Acid Eaters he could expect to run into the Rabid Fangs who were constantly fighting over the eastern reaches of the seventh sector.

Ash was aware of every major gang that operated in the gutter and Espher as a whole and there were more than he could ever count. They constantly changed loyalties and territory, fought endlessly, and had the luxury of doing most everything without worrying about the JPD. It just made killing people too easy and he had been told in the Academy, verbatim, that the people in the gutter were lost and not worth the money the citizens of Espher paid them. Those in the Gutter did not pay, they did not get the protection of the JPD. Murder, here, was without penalty.

If you owned a weapon you could, in theory, come to the Bottom Rung and kill everyone you saw and then go home and wash the blood off of your hands and then never worry about any charges. In the government's view, it seemed, killing off people in the gutter could only benefit the city. They did not pay in to the city but the conditions they lived in were hardly a tax upon the city. Almost all of The Gutter was self-sufficient, running on ancient powerplants that were usually under the protection of larger gangs. The powerplants spewed pollutants into the air while being operated by the best people that could be found by the gang in control.

Ash soldiered onward, his eyes constantly observing his surroundings, receiving no help from the piss-poor lighting. Reaching up, Ash turned on the light mounted on the stock of the ScumThumper and was given at least a bit of ease being able to stab it into the darker areas. Most of what he saw was just as disgusting or unimpressive as the rest of the areas he had been. He began to hear the faint sounds of life scuffling around as he continued along the busted path. He killed the spin on the gun to listen more closely and began to furrow his brow. The scuffling was not a promising sound. Shutting off the light on the gun he moved further in, drilling one fact into his own head. Survival. He was not a cop here, he was going to be fighting to survive this. He could not be kind and gentle, he could not be a good guy, he could not survive this unless he killed all the parts of him that exposed weakness or vulnerabilities. It was a lot harder than he expect.

As the sounds of scuffling feet increased, he began to hear a faint gurgle that promised nothing pretty. Ash began to slowly stalk through the near-darkness, his feet placed carefully as he slipped around a pillar, listening. Whatever was going on was behind the pillar opposite of the one he had taken cover behind. There was a muffled curse and a clatter of metal on the dirty cement, he carefully looked around the pillar but could only see a pair of feet kicking weakly at the ground. Furrowing his brow, Ash went against his better judgment and slipped around the pillar he was at and carefully covered the distance. 

It took a decent amount of time before he could get close enough to put his back to the pillar. Listening, he could hear the gurgle much more clearly, he could muttered words and then the smell of blood hit him. Gritting his teeth and wishing he could just move on, Ash leaned his head out for a brief moment before common sense kicked in and he brought the weapon up. Carefully he began to side-step around the pillar, the scene unveiling itself. A pool of blood was on the ground and in it, propped against the pillar, was a youth who stared out with broad eyes.

Propped there, he was obscured partially by the crouching form of a man who was busy carving a line down the young man's chest with a knife. One arm was off to the side, torn open around the wrist where his chip was likely torn out and checked for any valuable information. The youth had a gag shoved in his mouth and suddenly his eyes found Ash. Standing there with his weapon ready, Ash must have looked like a savior but he was hardly feeling that way.

Ash watched in morbid fascination as the street surgeon began to tear flesh away to expose muscle and bone. He moved the knife down and plunged it into the youth's abdomen causing his eyes to widen in shock as he stared at Ash, pleading with his eyes for help. It was not until he youth's abdomen was cut open wide that the sense of decency in Ash clicked and he brandished the weapon, curling his finger over the trigger and pulling it just a bit.

The barrels on the ScumThumper began to wind up and spin and the street surgeon whipped around, drawing an older model pistol from his coat. As the street surgeon brought the pistol toward Ash he squeezed the trigger. In a storm of pellets and furious thunder, the weapon bucked violently in Ash's gripped. Ash watched in awe as the body of the surgeon was chipped away with intense speed. Shapes of anatomy were blasted apart, pellets obliterating flesh and bone at such range. The Surgeon's face was stripped away with one blast and then the remains of bone were ripped to shards as pellets tore through his skull. 

The contents of the surgeon's head were quickly scattered across the ground several feet away, along with the majority of his shoulder and chest. The surgeon fell back and began to twitch, headless and missing half his torso, his disconnected arm still brandishing the pistol. Ash held the trigger down a couple seconds longer before releasing it and letting the barrels wind down. His eyes examined the abstract, grisly work of art the ScumThumper had made of the street surgeon's head and torso. It was much more devastating and violent than he had imagined it would be.

Curiosity had been indulged and Ash turned to regard the youth bleeding out. Lowering the gun, Ash looked the youth over. Slowly he knelt down, carefully avoiding thee pool of blood with his knee, and looked into the youth's eyes. There was no telling how he got here, he was dressed well for the area and he must have had some sort of implant if the surgeon was harvesting him right here... or maybe things had become so nightmarish that the street surgeons just did it all in plain sight. 

The young man stared at Ash, eyes still pleading and there was a sting in Ash's gut as he read every word in the young man's head. 'Help me. I'm going to die. Please help. I don't want to die here. Call for emergency medical attention. You're JPD, save me. I don't want to die here. I don't want to die here.' Ash's face twisted up in anguish and the weight pulled down on him.

“I can't do anything.” Ash forced out, his eyes looking away. “Even if I could get you emergency transport you would be dead before you got to the hospital.” he sighed, and grit his teeth. Many thoughts swept through his head and he began to observe the cuts and bleeding wounds. He could not have much blood left. “I... I can't help you. Not like that.” Ash muttered, reaching up to pull the gag from the young man's mouth. Ash stood up and looked down at the mess, reaching behind him to wrap his fingers around his sidearm and pull it free of the holster. 

“I can make it stop or you can bleed out.” Ash said, his voice dry of any emotion. “Just... It's all I can do for you.” he explained. The youth nodded and Ash raised his pistol to place the barrel against the youth's forehead. “Just nod.” Ash whispered, his eyes looking away. He felt the youth nod against the barrel of the gun and closed his eyes. There was a crack that split the air as the gun fired and blood flecked Ash's uniform. Ash's arm went limp and let the weapon hang at his side. Slowly the youth's body slid to the side and then slumped over and hit the ground.

Survive seven days and you can go back to your life, Ash. Survive seven days and you can be with her again. Ash raised his head and began to walk away. He didn't look back to see what he was imagining in his head. He couldn't do more than that, as selfish as it was this was -his- life and Marie was -his- … something. Girlfriend? She was waiting at the end of this hellhole and Ash holstered the pistol at his back and took the ScumThumper back in both hands. 

Ash wasn't sure how the youth had ended up here but at the least, Ash saved him a few minutes worth of bleeding out and dying. The shot killed him instantly and freed the youth from the pain, Ash tried his best to make that sound like he had helped the youth in some substantial way. If Ash had been quicker to investigate maybe he could have done more but... once more he hammered the words home. You must survive, Ash.

Walking with his eyes somewhat unfocused, Ash followed the ruins of the street toward distant lights and sounds. Perhaps it was a bit of a settlement, somewhere alive, somewhere he could immerse himself in and forget the gurgling sound of the young man while he had hid behind that pillar. He wanted to scream at himself and scold his mind for dwelling on it. The kid was dead the moment he entered the Bottom Run. Healthy bodies, decent clothes, that made you a target. 

“It was all I could do...” he muttered, his eyes moving to focus on the distance where the sounds of life were originating and began to move swiftly toward it, something to distract his thoughts as he told himself to be cold, to not care, to worry only about himself after spending so much of his career doing the exact opposite. It was a brutally opposite way of thinking but this life was -his-, Marie was -his-. It was selfish but it was the only way he was sure he could get out of this alive.

The Music That Influences RFTA: The Prequel (pt.1)

So I was thinking I would just post some of the songs that inspire a lot of my writing. Most notably they are works from Bad Religion and I decided to post links to youtube videos with lyrics. I'll give them an 'area' as best I can.

Also apparently the blog doesn't parse youtube links so just click on the song name to be taken to the video.


'Pity The Dead' this is a song that is pretty much specific to the gutter. It covers the general feeling I want to have for the place-- that is to say that people are living so horribly that death is probably the best thing to happen to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHDQKPMSI1E

'God Song' is a good feel for general attitudes toward religion in Espher and a flavor of the treatment of Christians in the current age.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0w2kQf0bjI

'God's Love' is an extremely strong inspiration for the way I have built Espher in regards to religion. Most people in miserable situations see a lack of mercy and question/drop their faith. Keep in mind all 'zealous' Christians were forced out of the city when they became violent in their demands that Espher join the war in the east. That's when they got the boot. In Espher you keep your religion to yourself if you do have one at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfnoi22-Bpk
(You will need to hit the 'show more' button below the video for the lyrics, I could not find one with lyrics on the video)

'Los Angeles Is Burning' is a general song that helps me with a lot of Espher. To get the 'things really aren't good if you look past the forced smiles and bullshit and see the statistics. It's generally good for showing how focused people are on stupid shit, allowing their city to become a dictatorship, the hell around them (if they don't have the money to buy themselves enough distractions for forget it)

The following three are my most dramatic inspirations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvmcJZ5r1o0

'Against The Grain' is a general feel for the resistance/underground/people in Espher who can see things as they are and do not buy into propoganda or scare tactics, those who see what is wrong and do what they can in all their own ways to fight against things as much as they are able.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gbVX-ELsUQ

'Punk Rock Song' is a good song about people living in Espher and how those with money can ignore things without worry. The declining conditions for everyone below The Cloud and how little is ever done to change or improve that. It focuses mainly toward the gutter, however, but is a good look at Espher in general, people not caring enough about others to notice that their circumstances are dangerously close to theirs if only a few things were changed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQFqXDCN80E

'Epiphany' is a good song to bracket the entire story or to apply to the main characters/the underground. 'What's right is wrong' 'What's clear and pure is not so sure' 'All promises become a lie / All that's benign corrupts in time' are all very good lines in looking over Espher.

'What's right is wrong' points that doing the right thing for those of us who are 'good' is now somehow mutated into something you don't or do not want to do.

'What's clear and pure is not so sure' is a nice line in regards to the government and general law enforcement or military focuses. You can never know just who actually means it when they say they are a good person, how far from your back their knife really is.

'All promises become a lie, all that's benign corrupts in time' points directly to The Iron Obelisk. All the promises that it would make human greed and political bullshit disappear, that it was a solution to it all. That all the good things that were there in the beginning have become warped enough to be nearly the exact opposite of what they are in the name of 'progress'.

That's all I'll do for now but if you were curious you might have wanted to look them over/listen to them.

Welcome To The Gutter

The most Ash had seen of The Gutter was in pursuit of fleeing suspects or perpetrators and in most cases suspects were the perpetrators. He had to say it looked much better when it was passing by at high speeds. Even then, the chases were through the upper tiers of it all where there were roads and air-routes for vehicles, this place was buried under infrastructure. Law enforcement wasn't a science, really, but tags (or 'chips') had really helped to track or identify crimes in progress. They certainly let you know if your fleeing suspect had any criminal history with only a seconds time spent scanning their birth tag. When convicted and sentenced your chip was updated and a lot of places above The Cloud flat-out refused to admit anyone with anything more than mild criminal charges on their tag, and good luck moving up in the workforce.

Before him he saw darkness barely lit with flickering lightrods, enormous pillars and columns, and nothing overhead except the constant drip of fluid and a deep darkness that swallowed up any hope of actually seeing past the first five tiers above you. There were spots that were completely uncovered, where one could see the sickly coloration of The Cloud as it drizzled a constant rain of poisonous chemicals absorbed from the pre-regulation power-plants still chugging along, this was not that part of The Gutter. Just how toxic that fluid was was up for debate but he was sure it would burn a hole through his arm. The power-plants were long-since brushed off by The Obelisk and served more to power the lower tiers and The Gutter. A rough cycle, it was power and pollution or giving up almost everything in hopes the air-scrubbers would be able to filter out The Cloud over some reasonable amount of time.

The air here was perpetually damp and smelled quite a deal worse than anything Ash had experienced. Fluid ran down every column, pillar, and building. Mold grew here and there, strange fungi and fat-capped mushrooms grew along the ruined streets as the fluids ran along toward some spot ahead. The elevator had placed him at the corner of what was once a street, kept in better condition as the elevator rarely brought anyone down except JPD equipment or forces and the two mounted sentry-guns were also a good deterrent for anyone thinking about attacking law enforcement or Juno personnel within the large range of the weapons.

Ash sighed, looking around and finding himself with little choice in which direction he traveled as the other had been barricaded by walls of JPD barriers. Walking along the remains of what was, at best, a path Ash sidestepped and jumped breaks in the cement and asphalt. He was moving toward the JPD outpost, guided partially by a map he had checked on his hub and signs spray-painted onto the large pillars, high and out of reach of those who tagged all the empty space there was. Some of the work was impressive, actually, he had seen some incredibly realistic work along a cement wall, it surely took someone months to complete. He wasn't sure how you managed to stay in one place so long and stay alive, here. Ash wondered, faintly, if Marie had ever seen the work of the young artists here. He had a fleeting thought of the two of them coming up with some sort of education scholarship for gifted artists trapped down here since birth, but with the direction things were heading with 'art' these days he wasn't so sure that would be a good idea. High up, the pillar markings guided him down the road.

It took several minutes of walking before he finally began to encounter people, the whine of the spinning barrels on his weapon had probably kept most people out of sight. They were few at first, hobbling across the road to their ramshackle dwellings or speaking in cant to their children, yelling at them to get out of sight. Ash didn't really understand the cant, although the option to learn was available. He hadn't ever needed it... Funny how things work out. He could gather enough off the inflection and tone to get a rough idea of what was being said. He began to walk through bigger throngs of people either unafraid or unaware of the whirling barrels that promised a very bad time for anyone in front of them. He figured it was a bit of both. As the crowds thickened it seemed he had happened upon what seemed to be some sort of community. There was a half-assed signpost in a language he didn't recognize but he knew there were innumerable claims of territory down here, gangs often battling at the edges as one tried to press in on the other.

Here there were people of all ages and they all looked sick. He wondered how odd he looked to them, having never had to endure breathing the damp, polluted air or had his skin burned by the dripping chemicals from overhead. People living here dealt with contamination and radiation daily, those that didn't die from it usually had very poor lives. Some of them had odd genetic or evolutionary traits that stopped them from growing sick with their environs. The was also a rumor that some street surgeon had managed to create a machine that could render one immune to the effects of radiation, although it changed slightly as he heard it each time. Here and there he could spot a few 'normal' people, their flesh was pale and they were just as sad as everyone around them. He wondered if these people ever saw sunlight or if they were like rats living underneath the 'real world'.

Looking up, Ash searched for some sign of light from the sky but he could still see nothing but columns and pillars, lighting, pipes, and darkness. Crumbling facades covered buildings, and broken windows let people stared down at him. The light that there was cast from enormous rails of lightrods, they had been designed to mimic sunlight but it was clear that they were underpowered. Still, it meant that people were getting at least something like sunlight. There was also, of course, the glow of colored lighting from dirty neon signs here and there, some were simply advertisements re-purposed just to bring a bit more light to the bottom of Espher. Ash was suddenly aware he was the subject of everyone's attention. Children had run off, frightened as if he were a monster, parents stood in front of their children protectively and the rest seemed to be waiting to find out if this was going to turn into a slaughter.

Ash looked around slowly, looking into the eyes of everyone who did not see him behind the badge but instead an impending act of police brutality. It wasn't exactly a secret that some JPD officers came down here to blow off steam by beating the shit out of those who lived here for the smallest and flimsiest of reasons. Being stuck here was reason enough. The letters upon his uniform and badge alone were enough to scare the dwellers of the lower tiers. J-U-N-O. The silence became thick and he knit his brows together tightly, wondering what exactly to do. It took him a moment to remember he had an assault shotgun whirling with promises to destroy someone in a second. Ash slowly lowered the weapon and killed the spin on the barrels. As the weapon spun down, some people were relieved and went back to their business, others only looked slightly less scared or threatened and kept their guard up.

Ash looked around himself, raising his hand in a slow wave. People stood still, watching and waiting. After a minute or so Ash sighed, he had to have come off just like the asshole cops who came down here for fun, his gun ready to start tearing through crowds of people. “Not here to bust you up, just passing through. Just keep... have a good day, everyone.” he paused and then added “Sorry.” and gave up on them. Ash marched through their community, children scattering and people cursing from the windows of ruined buildings. Small fires lit here and there, cooking paltry meals of likely spoiled food, boiling water or something else. The smells were all exceedingly foreign to him, all of it offensive to his senses beneath an overwhelming must lingering from the moisture in the air. Continuing on with his weapon lowered, Ash stepped into what appeared to be some kind of market.

Signs were hand-painted or stuck together with pieces of other signs holding a desired letter leaving them fairly unattractive and reminiscent of old, old movies with ransom notes from some mysterious killer or group of people. The smell here was better, there seemed to be actual food cooking around here. An ancient-looking old woman sat at a stand with all manner of bits and bobs, everything from lug-nuts to broken jewelry, a child sat behind a counter taking orders from people gathered before it while a man slaved away on stoves and various kinds of ranges in a converted trailer that likely also served as their home. He debated pausing to actually try something but he didn't have a lot of time to get to his post and they probably couldn't do a damn thing with legal currency, down here it was more of a barter system or some gang-specific coinage.

Ash continued walking, his eyes flitting about, looking over vast expanses of cement made less boring with art that seemed to have been painted over back and forth for decades. Some of it was so overdone that it actually came out as interesting. As he exited the settlement he saw rings of people smoking something he hadn't ever smelled before. Presumably, it was a drug, but Ash was only here to survive, he didn't give a shit what people were smoking, shooting, snorting, inhaling, or eating. They seemed to freeze as they noticed his presence but his lack of interest and increasing distance let them go back to what they were doing. One building had a burly man in a half-torn shirt leaning back against the open door. There were a number of words for the female anatomy all around the door complete with arrows directing one to it. He could hear the sound of sex from across the street and it wasn't just a few people. “'Ey, you wan' pussy? We ga' pussy here!” the man called across the road.

Ash shook his head “No, thanks. I'm, er.. I'm happy with what I have.”

“You too goo' to spen' money in The Gutter, poley?”

“Nah, it's just my medical plan doesn't cover the ridiculous amount of STDs you have to have floating around down here.”

The man looked confused for a moment, thinking. “You come back when you we kill the STDs, then.”

Ash nodded “You bet, I'll be there, day one, just get rid of all those STDs.” and walked on.

As the community grew more distant the artistic skill in the graffiti took a nosedive, out here it seemed to be more gang-tags and drug-fueled abstracts that probably looked perfect when you were blown out of your mind on whatever the drug of choice was down here. Moving through The Gutter, Ash had to say it wasn't quite as bad as he expected but he also had to acknowledge that things were quickly looking worse as he followed the painted arrows high on the columns. The darkness increased and made everything more claustrophobic. Lowering his eyes, sweeping the area before him, Ash craned his neck at the sight of a human arm laying on the ground just past a massive pillar. Alive, dead? It really didn't matter, as much as the policeman in him wanted to check and make things were okay he had to hammer the statistics into his head, something here, somewhere, was extremely likely to try and kill him.

The street broke into a crumpled mess, more like gravel than pavement now, all kinds of litter and filth trapped in it. Somewhere he heard the sound of running footsteps, not just one. He turned toward the sound and raised the weapon. He hit the switch on the side of the weapon and the barrels began to spin up as a holosight appeared atop the weapon. Ash was pretty sure having any kind of sights on a weapon like this would do absolutely no good. As the footsteps approached he turned his head trying to find the source as the sound echoed around on the concrete structures and pillars. It took a moment before he saw the figure come into view, a lean, dark-skinned man running for his life by the looks of it. He was dashing with a mess of cash and a blue plastic bottle that Ash recognized as typically being used for cancer management. “Three of 'em! Tried to take my sons pills with knives!” he panted as he went by, ducking behind Ash in expectation for the law to save him. Ash considered the man very new to The Gutter or very desperate. A group of three dirty, pudgy men came into view, running toward the man the moment that picked him out. Without consideration they were chasing him down and the man was flinching, fighting whether to flee or see if he could actually depend on the law for once. As far as Ash was concerned, these men were righting at -him-. The three of them were brandishing crude knives made from metal scrap and bolting right at him. This was not something he considered okay. It took less than a second for all three to come to a halt with the spinning barrels of the weapon leveled at them.

“Officer! Oh fuck, you see that guy? He stole...” the man panted “He stole my... I'm a simple guy, I run a straight business--”

“Don't say things you know I know is bullshit.” Ash interjected, jabbing the barrels toward them. “Do yourself a favor, guys, drop the knives.”

The three of them slowly complied. “No, really, he just came in and took a whole bunch of my...” the man talking struggled for a way to word it without making it sound illegal.

“Do you expect me to think you actually run anything above the table, at all?”

“Not exactly, but we help people.”

From the looks of them they didn't help people out with much aside from emptying their wallets. “Got anyone credible to back that up?”

One of the other man began to speak but Ash quickly swept the barrels toward him. “Wait your turn, asshole.”

“I mean... no... We were about to close up so there's no one in the store, you know.”

“Right. Tell you what, guys, I'm going to be here for a while and if you ever charge at me like that again I'm going to go ahead assume you're attacking me and pull this trigger.”

“What? No, we would neve--”

“Shut up. Now, I'm already aching to test this beast out. ScumThumper, you follow? I'd prefer not to have to use it but I can and will. Why don't you do your best just to stay the fuck away from me and this guy behind me, then we'll never see each-other again and I won't have to wash your guts out of my uniform.” Ash felt tension in his finger as it pressed to the cold metal of the trigger. He wanted to fire the weapon, but was it that simple? “Now, turn around and march your asses back around that corner. Keep going until you can't hear this gun. I'm not taking a fucking chance with you, you have fifteen seconds to get the hell out of my sight before I start firing. Get the fuck out of here, leave the knives.”

With that the three of them stepped back a few feet and then turned and ran, Ash stood there, weapon ready. Ash reflected on the event as he stood there. He had been hoping for a threat to present itself so he could blow it to pieces but was that because he wanted to test the weapon, his frustration was burrowing to the core of him, or because he was being pro-active about surviving it all? Once they were out of sight he whirled around and held the dark-skinned man in his sights. “Bottle.” he prompted, extending his hand. The man placed the bottle in Ash's hand and he looked it over. As expected, the bottle had all labeling torn away or scratched away. Using his thumb, Ash popped the lid on the bottle and looked inside it. The markings on the pills confirmed the assumption he had. Latching the cap down, Ash looked into the man's eyes. A few seconds passed before the man held out the money in his hand to Ash. It was gang currency by the look of it, though they were so prolific he couldn't tell which one the currency actually mattered to. It was more than enough for typical JPD assigned to the area to accept and then beat the man to death for attempting to bribe them.

“What, are you trying to bribe me with that?” he inquired, laughing “Forget it, “ Ash spoke, tossing the bottle back at the man “I don't want to be here any more than you do. Get out of here.” Ash said, shaking his head. He hadn't made it half-way to his post and already he'd been expected to become violent and lash out twice. The man nodded and gave a slight bow to Ash as he gave his thanks. Ash watched as he slipped away into the maze of pillars and buildings. Ash kept the weapon pointed in their direction he walked, looking up to the pillars as they pointed him into a turn. Turning the corner he was not happy about the expanse of darkness before him. Previously the darkness had been pierced by lengths of lightrods but this was something that screamed 'trap' to him.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he muttered, his hand running up the stock to switch the flashlight on. He played it around through the darkness but it just wasn't strong enough to make it any real distance into the darkness. Panning his weapon upward, it seemed someone had intentionally shot out the lightrods and they seemed to be a piss-poor shot at that with all the pitting in the surface of the concrete above. This, if nowhere else, was a bottleneck made to rob or kill. Ash looked at each pillar that he could illuminate and grunted, shaking his head. Far in the distance he could see where the lightrods were still functional but he was still staring at a few hundred yards of pitch darkness. The tunnel had apparently been named in honor of someone but the remains of the sign above it were too corroded to read and at this tier, his hub simply didn't have any information.

Ash thought on it for a long moment, comparing his ideas of how to handle it. He couldn't sit there all night and it could be another way to keep someone locked between decisions and ripe for mugging. Taking one hand off the shotgun he reached behind him and pulled a ribbed paper tube from loop on his belt and looked it over. Moving toward the wall nearest him, Ash raised the tube and struck the end of it hard again the concrete wall. The sound it left was a crunch as the seals in the flare were broken. Typically you would rip the cap off and force the seals to snap in half but Ash was understandably reluctant to lower his weapon. Smashing them worked just as well in a pinch. Ash held it up and out as he began to walk into the pitch. Fizzing as it burned, the flare cast a somewhat static area of illumination around him and the light on his weapon helped a bit with seeing ahead.

Each step echoed in the tunnel amidst the echoes of the flare burning and the barrels on his weapon turning. It was unnervingly quiet, really. Ash kept his eyes open, looking for any signs of movement or reflection, listening for anything that did not originate from him. He was roughly half-way through the tunnel before something scraped across the concrete. The sound raked against his senses and he fought the urge to whip around and start firing. Instead he turned and flung the flare, end-over-end, into the darkness he had passed through and drew another quickly. In the pitch darkness he felt as if he were being pulled into an ocean of ink, his lungs seemingly incapable of drawing enough oxygen to keep him alive. Ash swept the weapon around, checking for anything that might be approaching. He was dizzy as his hand fumbled at his belt to draw another flare and cracked the end against the stock of the ScumThumper. The area around him burst back into view, revealing the trash and grime along the ground along with dark brown stains and smears.

Turning back around, Ash leveled the weapon and kept the new flare overhead, his steps following what he was certain was the trail of now-dried blood of someone killed or attacked in this deathtrap. A skittering sound echoed from the walls and he turned to look back as something pounced the flare and snuffed it out, destroying the small island of safety. With his heart thumping in his ear, Ash kept moving forward, getting closer to the safety of the lightrods just outside the tunnel, while the beat of his heart throbbed in his ears. He was sure something was following him but he could not begin to imagine what the hell it could be. After a moment of thought Ash dropped the flare and turned to face the length of the tunnel as he began to backpedal briskly. There was only a little further to go before he could get out of the darkness and breathe in deep.

Only a few yards away from the flare, something dove upon it and screeched a sound that was utterly alien to Ash. The figure he saw, however briefly, was stunted and abnormal. The skin upon it was almost glassy and limbs seemed out of proportion in the brief second he saw it. Some mutation, he wagered, there were a lot of unfortunate victims around here who suffered from mutations due to radiation and toxic chemicals and vapors. Two decades ago this place had been almost as safe as it was just a dozen tiers below The Cloud but it didn't take long for the world to begin to rot beneath it. With only a dozen feet left to go, Ash turned and began to sprint out of the darkness, whirling around to sweep the light around the entrance to the tunnel, looking for something, anything, and finding nothing.

Inhaling deeply, Ash felt his heart calm just a bit before he began to cough. The air here was definitely not clean and his lungs were burning lightly as the pollution in the air irritated them. Following stenciled signs Ash passed a few people but they were surprisingly uninterested in a Juno policeman. Here there were hundreds of pipes running along the distant ceiling, dripping where they were joined and bleeding rust down along the cement walls they passed just above. It left an odd streak of colors down the walls here and there where pipes angled off to the sides. Here there were the remains of vehicles gutted by fire, the wreckage from old collisions, and some that seemed to have functioned as some form of shelter in the past. Rusted thoroughly, eaten by the toxic drip until holes were burned through them. Here there were more signs cropping up, colored lights in the distance that seemed to promise the relatively safe haven of populated gang territory.

Looking up to the massive pillars, Ash saw his destination was not through the gathered populace, unfortunately. Instead, Ash's destination led him away to the east where the sector border was marked with walls that was almost three tiers high. Set into the wall was a heavy, reinforced gate with the letters J-U-N-O sprayed upon it and a reinforced structure adjacent to it, connected to the wall. This was his post, the border between seventh city sector, Avalanche and the eighth sector 'Laurel'. With a sigh of relief, Ash relaxed and let the tension escape his shoulders while approaching the guard-post. It was empty which was, honestly, not surprising but he would've preferred to have had someone to talk to for a brief moment, to have some sort of briefing on recent activity or dangers. That was, however, not the case.

Switching the rotary system off, the ScumThumper slowed its barrels to a halt and he lowered the weapon to his hip. As an after-thought, Ash killed the light on it and approached the armored door of the post, pressing his hand to a sensor-plate and letting it flash-scan his tags. The door clicked and rattled for a moment before sliding open and Ash stepped inside, the door ratcheting shut behind him. “Well... this is certainly underwhelming.” Ash muttered, looking the post over. There was a desk with a practically ancient terminal upon it, a few bunks in a room to the side, a small armory mostly devoid of weaponry and a stairway to the roof of the post. Ash moved to the desk and turned the terminal on, grunting at how old the interface was. It took him several minutes to figure out the old interface to report that he had made it safely to the post but he pulled it off.

Ash sighed and fell into the chair by the desk, slumping and slouching as he closed his eyes and tried his best to will away the tension in his body, the rough edges on his nerves, the paranoia. He opened his eyes just a bit, looking through his mostly-lidded eyes at the terminal before him. Something struck him immediately, a sudden awareness of danger. In the next second he realized it was the faint reflection of movement behind him. Ash bolted upright and began to turn but a thin wire had already been wound around his neck and pulled taut. He felt the wire cutting into the flesh of his neck as his attacker pulled harder. One of Ashes hands shot up to try and dig under the wire, to grant him the ability to take the smallest breath but could not find any room. Choking out half-sounds , Ash lashed behind him but found nothing to strike. Ash bucked and writhed as he felt things growing hazy.

Ash's lungs ached and his neck began to bleed around the wire wrapped around it. Gripping the ScumThumper by the grip, Ash raised it and pointed it back over his shoulder, pulling the trigger hard. The barrels began to spin up and then the deafening blasts echoed in the relatively small space of the guard post as brutal bursts of metal shot blasted behind him. His attacker, however, had ducked out of the way and the blasts tore away at the walls and doors rapidly. A sharp knee to his lower back threw his arm off and the ScumThumper fell to aim at the floor, blasting up chunks of concrete as it blasted away at the floor. Things began to grow dim as Ash noticed a figure slip around in front of him as the wire at his neck held taut. He tried to summon the strength to raise the ScumThumper but it was not there.

Watching with dwindling awareness, Ash watched helplessly as the man brandished the familiar shape of a JPD stun-stick in a two-handed grip. He wound back and charged, swinging hard toward Ash's head. Ash didn't feel the strike as it smashed into the side of his head brutally, sending his head to the side. He was sure it would have hurt terribly but the lack of oxygen just made it easier for his consciousness to slip away as his body convulsed with the electric current shot through it on contact with the stunstick. The world around Ash went black and his only thought was of the red-headed beauty who had actually given him drive to survive it all. He had been ready to fight the entire seven days and here he was, dying minutes within making it to his post. Then everything was gone and Ash's body went limp in the stranglehold around his neck.

–

Phoenix screamed bloody murder inside of his head as he stared at what had to be the hundredth document for review, identical to a degree that removed any doubt he had been put here to keep him from helping Ash out while off duty. Typing in the case number and keying in the information in the report, Phoenix felt an extremely longing to be home with his wife, Saoirse. She was always the best part of coming home, outranking sleep by a mile. He lost himself quickly in the thoughts of the way she looked last night as he ran the electro-spike into the port just behind her ear. She had convulsed and screamed obscenities as it sent stimulation directly to her brain, feeding the nerves and her brain with raw pleasure. She had screamed his name as she writhed on top of him and she was thrown into orgasm. The cleft of her abdomen and the skin of her torso stretched taut over her ribs was enough to salivate over, alone. But the way she lost control was--

Phoenix was snapped from his memory back to the present as the Sector Chief slammed his palm on the desk, making Phoenix jump and fight to focus his eyes more quickly upon the expression on the Sector Chief's face. There was an expression he had never seen upon it. “Phoenix... “ the Sector Chief began, trailing off as he seemed to look for words. With his weathered features, the Sector Chief frowned deeply. Raising his hand from the desk revealed a small pane laying on the desk. Phoenix took it and looked at it. Slowly his expression changed from surprise to anger. “You better be fucking with me!” he growled. The Sector Chief shook his head and stood up, turning to walk away from Phoenix's desk and back toward his office.

Phoenix roared with frustration and overturned his desk with furious anger. The items resting on the desktop clattered against the floor and the desk terminal busted on the floor along with a mug of coffee that had gone cold hours earlier. Documents soaked up the coffee, staining them dark brown as Phoenix fell back into his seat, his teeth clenched and threatening to crack under the force while his fingernails began to dig into the flesh of his palms from the tight fists his hands were locked into. “I'm going to fucking beat that piece of shit Vanderbilt to death!” Phoenix screamed after the Sector Chief who did not pause to offer any discouraging words. Phoenix turned and grabbed his coat, running toward the parking structure elevator, seething. Phoenix punched the button for the level his car resided on several times over, willing the elevator to speed up before he began to pace back and forth, blood dripping off of his hands onto the plain floor of the elevator.

On the floor at Phoenix's desk, the small pane delivered from the Sector Chief flashed with red text.

“21:52: Officer Scarborough, Ashley. DECEASED”