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,"

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”