By Andrew Stark
Sometimes I hate this fucking city. All the corruption, crime, Augmen Gangs, and other assorted scum that fill this city. Not even to mention all the other things demons alien bug things…you name it I’ve seen it, and probably shot it with my trusty MRG. But hey those are the kicks you either put up or shut up. Not that my job is all bad mind you working for the Gotham Project does have advantages. The pay, the power, the ultra high level clearance…but most of all that your keeping the little plebs, Joe public alive and well, in the dark about all the nasty little secrets that would make every small minded fool quit his job and hide in his cellar waiting for the end of the world. Hell we’ve come close.
So its my job to make sure that, one, everything that those up on high say is secret remains that way, and two that little alien slug demon from the little black slug alien dimension don’t eat our world. Or whatever nasty little critter decides to assault our fair city.
Some people still believe in that whole freedom of information thing, think that the public has a right to know. Fools all. If the guy on the street knew a tenth of what I know the world would collapse into hell quicker than you could say, “that can’t be fucking real”.
So yeah I suppress the truth, yeah I do some nasty things to do that, but ask your self this. If you knew what I knew what would you do? If the answer is let the public know then I feel sorry for you, not because your wrong and I’m right. But you would probably end up with me, or one of my colleagues splattering your “I’m going to rock the boat” brains all over your wall.
So when it all comes down to it, I think I’m right. You think your
right. Hey I won’t begrudge a guy his opinion. But I have a large government
organisation behind me. Military hardware twenty years ahead of the actual military
hardware, a body worth twenty million in cybernetics and nano-orgs, also enough
political and social power to do pretty much whatever the hell I want. Do you?
So you had enough time to think? You made your choice? What’s it going
to be? You going to join us, or do I call the cops and tell them I just put
down a twelve time murderer and neon dealer?
Oh by the way the names…
Recruitment Assignment 14B18 Nano recording – 6/29/2052
The sun was actually visible today. Just at the right angle that Jack could actually see it out his window. In the jungle of skyscrapers it was rare to see the sun, in the shadow of so many huge buildings, or hidden by clouds and almost constant rain. Ever since the icecaps melted with global warming the heightened amount of water vapour made it almost entirely rain. He marvelled at it, a common urban myth was that if you saw the sun you were in for a bad time. He didn’t believe a word of it. He was at work as usual for a Thursday afternoon sitting at his desk finishing today’s reports and stories for tomorrow’s Enews working for ENN wasn’t as glamorous as working for one of the large media networks. But it did pay well. Jack put the finishing touches on his fifteenth report of that day. A twelve year old kid who had invented a new sex-sim chip that was hyped to be the best on the market, more bang for your buck so to speak. He had met the kid earlier that day, and the whole thing had left him with a bad taste in his mouth. Evil little fucking bastard he thought, remembering the interview. Jack pondered how numb he was getting that seeing a kid as corrupt, and devoid of redeeming features, didn’t even shock him in the slightest. He remembered the look the kid gave him when he told him “You better give a good report, or you might make the news yourself… but then I doubt anyone would care about a washed up, half rate reporter been found dead in his office”. Jack knew the kid wasn’t making an idle threat. It was a threat he could, and would back up… He wrote an excellent review of his chip.
Pushing those thoughts out of his mind Jack started work on a story that had cropped up a few days ago. He doubted that anything would come of it, but it had peaked his interest and would work on it even if it didn’t get published. A gang of twelve men had been ripped up at a neon deal… and not just in a monoblade way, or even a chainsaw way. From the reports he had gotten on it, it looked as if some kind of giant animal had torn them up with teeth and claws. His thinking was that it was some kind of cyborg dog or assassin robot, but there were very few organisations that could get that kind of hardware. So if it was one of the major players, the Military, one of the large corps. Why did they kill a bunch of street drug dealers? Jack’s nose was twitching, he knew he had the scent of a possibly HUGE story, and that got his journalistic blood flowing.
Reading through some of the reports on the incident again. Twelve men all armed with a nasty array of weapons making a deal in an alley between two large warehouses at the edge of the city. Ballistic reports show that only one of them managed to get a shot of, the bullet was found imbedded in a wall fifteen feet away.
Twelve men all armed, members of gangs so no amateur gun users, who would have had them guns drawn, and only one of them managed to get a shot off and that guy missed. Whatever that thing, or thing were they must have been fast. Jack thought as he leafed through them.
Jack stood. Reading the reports wasn’t enough he needed to see for himself, but first he had to go change clothes. Going to that neighbourhood in a suit would guarantee you a mugging if you were lucky, if you weren’t, worse.
Once changed into his ghetto getup, he hoped into his car, well his second car a beat up Dragen 1220. Complete with bust out lights two broken windows. Various stains on the inside, and chips and scratches on the outside, and the best touch of all a few bullet strafe marks along the left side. When he had bought the car it was in great condition, it took Jack and his friend Johnny weeks to perfect the bust up look his car now had. The car made only a low hum as he hit the freeway at 140mph been a hydras engine with the usual quietness of a hydras engine. He liked his streetcar, as beat up as it looked on the outside it ran like a dream. It was always good to know that if the shit hit the fan, this car wouldn’t let him down. Although it had bullet scars, it was fully small arms bullet proof.
Speeding up highway 24 Jack put on some tunes, a local band - Atrophy, still small time, He had written about them in return for a favour form there cute lead singer. Jack still smiled at the favour she gave him. So lost in memory he almost missed his off ramp swerving just in time not to. Keeping the music on, in this area of the city playing loud music of a local band. Would raise his street cred. He didn’t really need it he was at home in the dark, and dangerous areas of Gotham.
Jack pulled to a stop just by the alleyway were the men were slaughtered. It was dark now, the sun setting on him while he was driving. He had a strange feeling about that, as if maybe it wasn’t just the sun setting but a chapter of his life. Scolding himself for been overdramatic he put him self to the task at hand.
The alleyway was cordoned off with police strips. The police force didn’t really care about this kind of thing, oh they were supposed to but in reality they didn’t give a damn about the murder of twelve guys who would have without second thought shot and killed any of them. Twelve neon dealers off the street were fine with the cops. Ducking under the tape and pulling out his camera, well his camera, phone, PDA, Dictaphone and a few other things all in one. He started to take some pictures.
The alley was dark. Large warehouses on each side towered over like steel walls. He felt very claustrophobic even though the alley was actually quite wide, maybe enough for two cars side by side. The place smelled of rotten garbage and sewage, shuddering as his enhanced sense of smell, many times more sensitive then the sense nature gave him picked up the metallic tang of blood in the air.
Chalk outlines were strewn all over the ground in odd shapes, it made no sense until he realised that they were the outline of body parts, the twelve men truly were ripped apart. Chalk marks spread around the street, on the lids of dumpsters, it was a mess, His mind struggled to imagine what it would have looked like before the police cleaned the place of, and Jack had seen a lot of gore in his lifetime, and had an overactive imagination. But the reality of the scene what it would have looked like was beyond all imagination.
Just as he was about to give up on finding anything interesting, his pictures already taken and waiting on his office computer. Expensive cyber-enhanced nose implants picked up a new scent, sulphur. Just the smallest hint of rotten eggs, a smell which no human nose could have picked it up. He looked around the scent was coming from above. Climbing up the fire escape sniffing all the time. He didn’t know what to expect, it might be nothing, but as a reporter Jack had learned long ago never to make assumptions, and to check on everything as that little unimportant detail might be the thing, later that cracks the story.
So up he climbed, ascending the fire escape in search of the source of the odour. He found it. A bottle, half broken, wedged in the drainpipe grate. A small medical bottle with a torn label, a small symbol in the corner was the only thing discernable. Three circles in the shape of a triangle, each with a curled tail coming off it, the circles and tails kind of looked like the figure six he thought. Jack had never seen this logo, but then that wasn’t a big deal, there were a lot of companies out there. The logo did remind him of something though. He just couldn’t but his finger on it.
