The final bell rang, signalling the end of the school day. Jason hurried out the side door of the Newport Military Boarding School, dashing past neighbours lounging on their front stoops, idly whittling away their mundane existence with stale cigarettes and complaints about how little reprieve the thin trees along the street provided from the mid-September sun. Kids in the park on his left were tossing footballs and Frisbees, others preoccupied with trash-talking one another as they played a game of baseball. Jason felt a prick of jealousy as he passed them; their mothers didn't order them to come home straight after school. Glancing up, Jason eyed the soldiers lazily patrolling the rooftops of the apartment buildings, wiping the sweat from beneath their helmets as they cradled rifles against their flak jackets, deceptively alert.
Jason jogged up the front steps of his Montgomery Street apartment building, its burgundy brick walls as dull and weather-worn as ever. Impatiently fishing for his keys in his pocket, he entered the lobby. Thick, gray dust motes floated up from the rotting floorboards, disturbed by the draft from the door. Jason sneezed as he hung a left inside, kicking a piece of plaster out of his way as he shuffled down the narrow hallway, the wood squeaking under his combat boots.
He could hear his mother's yelling before he even put his key into the lock. Wonder what set Mom off this time…Jason sighed, taking a moment to brace himself as he slipped inside the flat.
"This is the second time this month they've cut you off, Shane! What the hell's goin' on?" Jason's mother screeched, her brunette hair falling out of her messy bun as she gestured wildly at her husband.
Shane crossed his thick arms, his square jaw set in an angry frown. "They're cuttin' lots of people off, Julia. Cobras are startin' to take notice, they've hanged three smugglers already! Do I have to mention they disembowelled them?It's gettin' risky, and the boss don't like risks!" he took a deep breath to compose himself, rubbing the bald patch on his head. "It's only temporary, I'll have another job as soon as things cool down again."
"It's only temporary? Last time you were cut off, we starved for two weeks!" Julia shouted, her hazel eyes blazing with fury. "We can't live on two ration cards a day, I can't support this family by myself!"
"You ain't supportin' this family by yourself, Jason's working hard, too. Right, boy?" Shane raised a graying brown eyebrow at his son, who had drifted, unnoticed, into the kitchen.
"Yessir," Jason meekly replied, giving an inaudible sigh as he pulled the last bowl of pigeon stew from the sparsely-stocked fridge. He grabbed a bent spoon from the dishrack, disappearing into his bedroom.
Julia gave her husband a glare, imitating his stance by crossing her thin arms. "He shouldn't be workin', he should be actin' like a kid. Cleanin' horse shit for soldiers, guardin' the smugglers' tunnel to Wall Market for you and your cohorts, it ain't right! He should be playin' football with his friends in the park, or datin' a girl, for Christ's sake!"
"It's either let him act like a kid or starve, honey. Take your pick," Shane shrugged, his Jersey drawl dripping with sarcasm.
Julia huffed, glancing at the oven clock. She swore, making a beeline for the door. "If you don't get another goddamn job, we'll starve anyway! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go earn food for this family!" she snapped in reply, slamming the apartment door behind her. The pots hanging above the stove rattled with the disturbance, as though grumbling irritably after her.
Shane sat heavily in the rickety wooden chair at the kitchen table, pinching the bridge of his crooked nose. He picked his head up at the sound of gently creaking hinges, and Jason reappeared with the bowl of cold pigeon stew as he sat down opposite his father. His expression was lined with the same anxiety.
Shane gave him a strained smile, "Don't worry, we won't starve. I've got some other contacts who might give me some work."
"That's what you said last time…" Jason mumbled between spoonfuls of thin stew.
Shane ruffled his son's hair, and he swatted his hand away with a tiny smirk. "I'll make it work, I know I will. How was school today?" he asked in an effort to change the depressing subject.
Jason lifted a shoulder, casting his gaze downward. "Riley moved into one of the dorm rooms today, and Chloe and me—"
"Chloe an' I," his father pointedly corrected.
Jason fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Chloe and I helped her unpack. She said she had some big fight with her dad and he told her to pack up and leave. So she went to the office today and signed for a room."
"Well, Dale ain't exactly father of the year, him strugglin' with his drinkin' an' all. It's probably better for Riley if she stays at school…" Shane sighed, rubbing a hand down his tired face.
"Riley doesn't have a roommate, but she don't mind. Chloe was bouncin' off the walls, she was so excited she an' Riley were neighbours," Jason smirked at the memory.
Shane pushed his chair back, the scraping sound almost unfamiliar in the quiet flat without Julia's yelling to drown it out. He chuckled, "Sounds like Chloe, she never sits still!" He clapped a hand on his son's thin shoulder as he ambled down the hall to the bathroom.
Jason disappeared into his room again. He pulled out ratty jeans and a ripped black t-shirt from his dresser, and peeled off his sticky uniform. He gladly deposited it on the back of his desk chair by the window. He scrunched his brow as he registered a quiet rustling, and he peered out his window to find a folded piece of paper stuck into the frame on the outside.
Pushing the bottom half of the window up, Jason grabbed the piece of paper and smoothed it out on his desk, pulling the cord on his lamp. The lightbulb blinked to life, flickered some more, and then died completely. Jason grumbled a few obscenities, squinting at the hastily scrawled message.
Pickup: Mozart, Kodiaks, District 3 Maxwell Auto, 10 p.m. Drop-off: Picasso, Eagles, District 4 North Baptist.
Jason sighed, pocketing the paper as he set his alarm clock for 9:25 p.m., estimating it shouldn't take more than that to get to District 3 if everything went smoothly. He dug around in his backpack for his math binder. Might as well do my homework if I'm not getting any sleep tonight…he groaned internally at the prospect of doing another run. At least Cobras only pay attention to gangs and smugglers, not to gang messengers. Hopefully.
(Line Break)
A sharp, monotone beep sounded in Jason's ear. His eyes snapped open, locking on the alarm clock on his desk, which dutifully read 9:25 p.m. in bright red. He switched the alarm off, peeling a sheet of math equations from his cheek. Jason sat still and listened for a moment for any sounds that suggested his parents were still in the kitchen. Satisfied as complete silence met his ears, he pulled on his sneakers, stuck his flashlight and switchblade into his back pocket, and tugged on his navy windbreaker. He crawled silently out of his window, and jogged off into the dark streets of the Newport QZ. The cool night air buffeted his skin, a refreshing change from the day's heat.
Jason tensed at every sound as he darted from alley to alley. Lights from the soldiers' scopes swept across the broken streets and glinted off dusty windows, spotlights of bright, white death from the rooftops above. It was long after curfew, and soldiers had permission to shoot anyone who wasn't military after 6 p.m.
Suddenly headlights blazed to life somewhere down the road and the engine of a military truck roared to life. Sucking in a breath, Jason ducked behind a building's corner, pressing himself as close to the rough brick as he could. A second later, the truck rumbled past, driver oblivious to his presence. The vibrations rattled up Jason's spine, making his teeth clack together. He only moved once the street was quiet again.
Unluckily for him, his family lived in District 2, but he was supposed to pick something up from a man under the name of Mozart in District 3. Jason crouched low as he came up to the barbed wire fence separating the two. He always hated this part. Along the fence he was in the open; there was nowhere to hide if soldiers spotted him.
Jason searched for his usual weak points in the fence bordering District 3, his paranoia at its peak as he constantly glanced over his shoulder at the soldiers guarding Checkpoint Columbus down the street. It was technically called Checkpoint Beta, but since there were at least four checkpoints for each district, people just nicknamed them for the streets they were on. This one happened to be on Christopher Columbus Drive.
Voices suddenly cut through the darkness and a group of bodies rounded the corner of a building down the street. Jason swore, suddenly holding his breath as he watched light beams sweep across the hoods of dilapidated cars. A radio squawked, barking directions. A patrol.
Feeling frantically in the dark, Jason's fingers met a portion of the chain-link where the fence gave way. He wrenched it up, scrambling forward on his stomach, digging the tips of his boots into the ground behind him. By the time the beams of light swept across the weak spot in the fence, the only evidence of his crossing were a few stray scuff marks on the ground.
As Jason jogged along the sidewalk in relative safety, his mind wandered back to the names on his note. He understood the requirement for code names, but he always wondered why gang members and smugglers never picked something more formidable.
If I were a gang member, I'd choose something really scary, like Cobra Crusher or the Silent Killer. Not something wussy like a dead artist's or musician's name, Jason snorted as he flattened himself against a wall, waiting for a sniper's scope light to shift farther off.
Jason continued musing to himself about code names as he picked his way through trash-lined alleys, dodging patrols and snipers until he came to an abandoned garage in a narrow backstreet. He glanced over both shoulders before ducking under an opening under one garage door.
Jason clicked his flashlight on, watching a man detach himself from the door of a beat-up car.
The man flung a hand up, the Kodiaks' bear insignia on his shoulder gleaming as he snapped in a raspy baritone, "Turn that off!" Once Jason obliged, Mozart dug around inside his tattered brown trench coat and handed Jason a wad of envelopes. "I won't wait 'round next time you're late," he grumbled, and then disappeared into the darkness as he departed the garage.
Jason sat down on top of an overturned milk crate, reviewing his options for the best route to get to North Baptist, which he vaguely remembered was a church. He had passed by the place on previous runs.
I can go up Jersey Avenue…No, stupid, that'd be going along the fence! Coles Street? Yeah, that sounds good. That's tent city territory, soldiers don't go there, he decided, and ducked under the garage door again.
Maybe there weren't soldiers, but that didn't make it any less dangerous. Whoever wasn't lucky enough to get a room in one of the cramped apartment buildings set up poor excuses for tents in the streets. The Newport Quarantine Zone had run out of room long ago, and District 3 was notorious for its tent cities. The sprawling, sordid, impoverished slums crowded any place soldiers didn't bother patrolling.
Coles Street was home to once such tent city. Green, blue, and brown sagging tarps hung from trees like Spanish moss along the splitting sidewalks, clung like hole-ridden cobwebs to porch railings, flapping feebly in the night breeze, and slumped between dilapidated cars squatting on decayed tires. Miserable graffiti and gang slogans adorned every vertical concrete surface, and rust dripped from iron fire escapes clinging to the four and five-storey apartment buildings looming over the squalor.
The denizens of Newport stared dolefully out at Jason from under their tarps, their hollow eyes listless with a hint of feral hunger. Men and women in threadbare jackets glanced up with blank expressions from drum fires dotting the streets like torches, the flames throwing chaotic, dancing shadows across the brick walls of alleys. The odd coughing fit and shrieking cry of an unhappy baby echoed across the quiet street.
The stench of human waste and rotting garbage filled Jason's nose, and he tasted something foul and unpleasant at the back of his throat. He turned the collar of his windbreaker up, hunching his shoulders as he tried to breathe through his mouth.
Suddenly Jason found himself hurled onto the splintering asphalt. By the time he realized what was going on, his attacker had pinned his arm and straddled his back to keep him from escaping. The letters were crushed underneath Jason's chest, along with his lungs. He tried desperately to struggle free as another pair of hands patted him down, grimy fingers searching his pockets.
The disgusting, greasy fetor rolling off both men hit Jason full-on, and he would have gagged if his chest wasn't being painfully pressed into the asphalt.
"Lemme go, I don't have nothin'!" Jason shouted as he wriggled in vain to escape. The man sitting on his back punched him twice across his temple, and Jason let out a tiny whimper as stars danced across his vision.
Two deep chuckles sounded from above him, and Jason felt those grimy fingers remove his switchblade from his back pocket. All of a sudden the weight on his back was gone and Jason rolled over, propping himself up on his elbows as he searched wildly for his attackers. But the only faces that looked back at him were dull and unsympathetic, half staring at him as if he should have known better, half looking like they wished they had the balls to mug him themselves.
Not wanting to temp the latter half, Jason sprinted all the way down to Fourth Street. He crawled under another split in the fence on Jersey Avenue, heart pounding and hands shaking as he glanced frenziedly about for more threats. Only the wind sighing through the dark alleys met his ears. Deciding he was safe for the time being, Jason slowed to a walk.
The red brick bell tower of the North Baptist Church loomed above him, one half a silvery blue from the moonlight. Jason slipped inside an ornate wooden door, bringing out the pack of letters from his front pocket. The moonlight filtering through the stained glass windows cast ripples of red, green, and blue like water across the decaying wood floor. Like his apartment building's lobby, the disturbance in the stale air sent dust motes afloat like rainbow-coloured fireflies in the pale light.
Another man in a trench coat, who Jason presumed to be Picasso, sat in one of the rotted wooden pews that neatly filled the low-ceilinged church. Jason handed the letters to him, and in exchange, he placed a thin wad of orange ration cards in his hand.
Jason quickly counted the cards. "Just two? I got mugged by these two assholes on my way here, you know," he informed Picasso.
"My orders were to give you two. That's plenty for a messenger," the man replied gruffly, picking at a loose thread sticking out from the embroidered eagle on his shoulder.
"They stole my switchblade, I want compensation," Jason pressed.
Picasso smirked, tugging on his short, black beard. "Just 'cause your father's a smuggler don't mean you can call the shots, pipsqueak. Be happy you're even gettin' cards at all," he grunted with finality.
Jason balled his fists, fuming as he turned and strode up one of the aisles. Crumbled plaster that had fallen from the ceiling crunched underneath his boots. He glanced up, slowing to a halt to take in the stained glass windows. Jason felt his frustration begin to ebb away as he stared at a glass mosaic above the ornate door. It was of a shepherd, a curved cane in one hand, his expression gentle and generous as he gazed lovingly at the fluffy, white lamb at his feet.
The window was cracked and broken in places, robbing the shepherd of part of his sandal and splintering a spider web of cracks through the lamb's woolly coat, but the image was still as breathtaking as Jason was sure it was before the outbreak.
"Beautiful, ain't it?" Picasso asked, his voice echoing softly in the silent church as he watched Jason gaze at the stained glass window.
"Yeah…" Jason breathed. There was a strange peacefulness that pervaded the church, like all the troubles of the outside world were kept at bay outside its walls.
It's hard to believe that people built places like this just to worship some person in the sky…It's more like a place royalty would live in, Jason mused as he stopped at a pew, brushing the cracked, frayed binding of a book lying on the seat.
"Did people really come here to—" Jason began, but stopped short as he heard a chocked gargle sound from behind him.
Jason's eyes went wide as he slowly turned, making out a black-clad figure looming over Picasso. He extracted a silver knife from his neck, and pocketed the letters inside his long, black coat before the blood gushing from the wound could stain them.
The numbing tendrils of pure fear curled around Jason like icy fingers, freezing him to the spot as the figure threw a sidelong glance at him, silhouetted against the moonlight. Like a black hole, the figure seemed to suck up all the colour from the stained glass windows as he turned to face Jason, head tilted curiously to one side. Jason made out the distinctive silver, intertwined pair of snakes on the beak of the figure's hood. His heart almost stopped.
Cobra.
Picasso slumped forward, collapsing in an unmoving heap between the pews as blood pooled around the Cobra's tall, black boots. Like liquid shadow, the assassin lithely advanced towards Jason, boots barely making a sound as his sword's dragon-shaped hand guard clinked against his belt buckle. The quiet sound brought more dread to Jason than any death knell the bell in the church's tower could make.
Jason's mind screamed at him to run, but the fear steadfastly anchored him to the floorboards. His heart pounded in his ears. His arms were lead, his legs like ice. Slowly, the Cobra leaned in, pressing a spidery, pale finger to his thin lips. Jason didn't dare breathe.
"Shh…don't tell," the assassin whispered in a young man's tenor, and Jason's eyes flicked to his face long enough to notice that the brown peach fuzz on his upper lip didn't match the blond bangs poking out from under his hood.
The Cobra turned around, leaving bloody boot prints on the church's rotting floor as he strode unfazed through Picasso's pool of blood as if it were water. Jason stared after him, wondering why he hadn't been disembowelled like his father's colleagues, or hung from the rafters.
The ice encasing Jason cracked when the Cobra suddenly erupted in a violent coughing fit, shattering the peaceful silence of the church as he doubled over. It struck something inside Jason, like a stark reminder that underneath all that brutality, this Cobra was still human. Free from the ice for a moment, Jason dared to breathe again.
Something most humans shared was sympathy for each other, but voicing his concern for an assassin who could easily change his mind about killing him seemed alien to Jason. The disquieting fit was over in less than a minute, and the assassin melted back into the shadows of the dark street. The clopping of horse hooves receded down the road, and the quiet inside the church returned.
Jason stood shivering in the middle of the aisle, wondering for a moment if the deity this church had been dedicated to somehow saved him from Picasso's fate. The fear gradually receded, and Jason became aware of an unfamiliar weight in his jacket pocket. He stiffly reached into it, his brows drawing together as he pulled out his switchblade, along with a pack of five more ration cards.