Pavi's Greatest Face
Chapter One: Graverobber
It had been raining. The black mud of the graveyard sucked at the Graverobber's boots as he made his way nimbly from one plot to the next, weaving through a variety of gravestones – some old some new – searching for the perfect corpse. It was always best, of course, if they were freshly dead. The fresher the corpse the stronger the Zydrate.
Rotti Largo was dead. Everyone knew it by now – it was all over the papers. The night's Genetic Opera had turned into a blood saga of the most dramatic kind. An old blood feud had been settled, and more than just Largo had died. Of course, Shiloh – that young scrap of a girl – the Repo man's daughter – had refused the inheritance that Rotti wanted to leave her. That left the kingdom of Geneco free for the taking. Left to be divided up amongst Rotti's three power-hungry heirs.
The Graverobber didn't really care about any of that. He had more important things on his mind. After all, with Rotti dead, the city would be in absolute chaos – at least for a few days. And when mass chaos broke out, bodies started piling up. Even the police couldn't keep the Graverobber from claiming his prizes then – at least for a little while. By the time they tried to catch up to him, he would be back safe in the underbelly of the city, his guns full of Zydrate and his clients flocking to him in the hundreds. It wasn't the most honest living, shooting up street whores with painkillers, but it was an eventful one.
There wasn't any real fear that the police would catch him. They never did, after all, and he'd been doing this for years. And if they did catch him, what of it? Geneco was still in too much turmoil. And all he really had to do was wave a little glass vial above Amber Sweet's head and she'd dance to whatever tune he played.
"Shit," the Graverobber cursed out loud as the toe of his heavy boot struck a gravestone. The only thing about graveyards that he hated was that you could never see where you were going. He glanced around briefly for any police, and smirked inwardly as he hopped over the fallen stone and made a break for his favorite entrance. It was all so sadly easy.
A rustle off to the side. Had he been imagining things?
The Graverobber twisted his neck to glance over his shoulder, his leather satchel clutched in his gloved hands. There was enough Zydrate in that one satchel to make him a wealthy man. But who cared about money, when one thrived solely on the thrill of the submarket?
Suddenly, the graveyard was flooded with white lights. The Graverobber didn't freeze in his place, even though his heart came to a screeching halt in his chest, he just kept running. He was used to this sort of thing, but the whole point was to get out as quickly as possible. He leapt over another fallen gravestone, sidestepping a root that had slithered as far away as possible from its mother tree, and dove for his favorite entrance.
Two strong hands wrapped around his ankles, and the Graverobber cursed nastily as he felt himself being hauled backwards. Twisting like a cobra with its tail caught, he whipped around and slashed a tiny pocket knife across one policeman's cheek. The policeman snarled, blood running down the side of his face, but he did not let go. The Graverobber was forced to the ground as two more policemen piled on top of him, once wresting the knife and the satchel of Zydrate away from his hands, the other delivering a blow to his skull that set his head spinning.
The hands on his ankles were gone. The Graverobber struggled to his knees, trying to get back on his feet, but he found himself staring straight down the long, sleek barrel of a rifle.
"Don't you move," the policeman snarled at him. "Don't you fucking move!"
The Graverobber resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and remained as still as a gravestone angel.
His eyes flickered to the side, catching notice of a dingy, torn sign that was slowly peeling away from one of the graveyard walls. Grave robbers will be executed on sight.
The Graverobber wanted to laugh with the irony.
The mouth of a gun was resting against the back of his head. The Graverobber sighed and closed his eyes. This was it, then. He was going to go down after all. It was such a pity. He hoped that oaf of a police man knew what he was handling. There was hundreds of dollars worth of Zydrate in that bag he was fumbling about with…
A voice came over the speaker, grainy and muffled. "Let him go!"
The police men froze. The Graverobber's eyes snapped open, and he grinned fiercely, lipstick red lips pulling back to reveal white, even teeth. Amber Sweet.
"Let him go!" the voice repeated snippily, before amending. "And bring him to me."
The Graverobber's smile faded around the edges, but didn't vanish entirely. So Amber Sweet wanted to see him. Well… that was interesting.
The gun behind him changed face. The muzzle was pointed away, and the butt came crashing down across the back of his head. His world suddenly went black.