The Runners

WARNING: This Fanfiction will contain offensive language, oppressive and offensive imagery, and depictions of substance abuse among other things. This is intended for only mature audiences.

"Shut up."

"Look man, I don't know shit! Dude, I-I'm just a nobody, man! You don't even want anything out of me!"

"Shut. Up."

"Y-you want money? I got money! I-I can get you everything you want!"

"I swear to Christ, you Irish fuck, if you say another word, I will, mark my words, let you drown in raw sewage. Shut. Up."

That seemed to do the trick to the terrified, red-haired man that was handcuffed to the metal chair, of which was welded to the steel flooring. It had been hours since he had seen true, unaltered daylight. He missed the rays of sun that had shone down on his pale skin, the breezes of wind that seemingly pushed itself through the streets and highways of the city above him. He could even imagine the people making their commutes to their workplaces, dealing with their daily lives how they saw fit. And yet, as the man imagined the surface as it was, he knew he would most likely never leave the underground warehouse that he was confined to. A grim future, to be sure.

Silence filled the room, as ironic as that may be. Not even the ventilation system could be heard. The interrogator sat himself on top of a wooden crate, draped in a tan tarp that covered half of the wooden structure. He looked oddly relaxed, as if he were waiting for another person to appear or another event to occur. His bruised hands fiddled with his torn clothes and the tarp he sat on. The Irishman being interrogated was still gasping for air, his face and chest also bruised and bloodied from the punches being thrown by the interrogator.

Then, the door opened at the end of the room. And as the metallic wall slid downwards, it revealed an even more stern man, with an even thicker old timey New Yorker accent.

"This the guy? The mick?"

The man on the tarp nodded.

The other man stormed his way to the welded chair, and the Irishman shivered, murmuring pleas of forgiveness for whatever he had done to hurt the two men that were about to end his life. He, in turn, got a slap to the face from the man he had yet to be acquainted with.

"You wanna tell me… why… you ratted me out?"

The Irishman created a confused look on his face, which also was punched off soon after.

"Don't act like you don't fucking know about what the hell you did. You sold us out. You sold me out, you sold my partner out, and most importantly, you sold Da'Vin out." With each mention of the word 'out', the Irishman got another punch to the face.

"I don-don't know w-who that is. I don't know who that is, man!"

"You know him, whether you think so or not, stupid fuck. You've bought… how much has he bought, Romeo?"

"Eight kilos. Plus or minus the baggies that you found."

"Eight kilos. You have bought eight kilos of Deriliumoxide and five bags of Speed. All from Da'Vin and his dealers. And you think that you can fucking fool me into think that you don't know who your supplier is?"

"I-I don't know! I-"

The man on the tarp had cut him off. "Don't normally think of that sort of shit? Yeah, sure. Is that how you specifically knew him by name, who his associates were, and where his shit is made?"

"I-"

The other man interrupted the Irishman. "Fuck your excuses." He began to wail into the now downtrodden pale soul, beating him senseless with his newly adorned spiked knuckles. "Because of you, Union's on our ass! Because of you, Union's got us on their hit list! So, guess what, asshole?" He began to pull out his pistol. A sizeable one, to be sure, but a pistol, nonetheless. "You'll die knowing you fucked up. Royally, fucked up."

The shot rang throughout the metal complex, and the whining of the mick was no more.

"Vinny, you could have waited a bit longer."

"Shut up. You know how much rats piss me off, Romeo. You know what he did to us and Da'Vin. Mick fuck didn't deserve to live longer than that." Vinny had begun to wipe the blood off his jacket, and holster his pistol. "Did he call?"

A grunt could be heard as Romeo hopped off of his elevated spot, hitting the metal ground with a slight thud. "Not yet. I'd expect he would, though. Seems like something he would do now that he's got Union on his ass."

"No shit. Alright, we're done here. Hand me the can."

Romeo nodded, handing him a small black box with an orange light at its center, slowly blinking away. "Wired and ready."

"Good. Let's head back to Toro's house. We got some, eh… stuff to run to the old Brooklyn district."

"What kind of stuff?"

"The kind of stuff that gets us a lot of cheddar, you got me?"

"Yeah, yeah."

The pair walked back to the doorway, with the blinking orange light picking up it's pace with each step they took. Once the two made it out of the doorway, and to the surface warehouse, the light turned solid. And, consequently, the ground beneath their feet shook and a loud thud could be heard in the warehouse. The evidence was erased, and the Irishman had been reduced to a pile of ash.

The air conditioning in the vehicle was full blast, blowing it's condensed gas into the faces of the driver and passenger. The passenger, Romeo, had leaned his head against the window of said vehicle, watching as the people and the other vehicles appeared to fly past him. The natural blend of colors from each person and car made the world seem as if it were a large blur of nothing. The driver, Vinny, on the other hand, was more angered than anything. His stern expression and his tight grip on the steering wheel would make it abundantly clear to anyone of any background that he was clearly unhappy. Whether this happiness stemmed from the Irishman and his big mouth or the smuggling that he and his partner were forced to do was a mystery. The only thing certain was that he was upset.

Romeo reached for the volume wheel at the dashboard of the vehicle, turning the music up to a quiet, yet listenable volume. As the knob was turned, the almost almost calming melodies from Dean Martin's Return to Me faded in, and the once fuming Vinny was now singing along with the long dead artist with a sly smirk on his face. Romeo didn't leave himself out, either, humming along with the bumpy harp and cello. And, as the chorus came and went, and the beautiful a-cappella came to the foreground of the song, the two tried, horribly, to raise their voices and sing on key. Any living thing that could even possibly hear the two would be trying to block the sound with their hands as the voice cracks equivalent to scratching chalkboards came and went.

"So, Romeo, how'd you catch the mick? The guy didn't seem like the type to get baited into an alley or anything."

"Funny story, believe it or not." Romeo turned his head to Vinny, flipping out his lighter and lighting himself a cigarette. "So you know where the guy lived, right? Near Clover and 34th? Well, he was being a pain in the ass to the landowner. The guy was practically using the whole 3rd floor as a hideout from us. So, I paid the guy a visit. We talked for a bit, and eventually I bribed him to give me the keys to old Paddy's suite."

"And I assume you got inside and waited for him?"

"Not even close. The mick was in the stairwell as I was walking out of the office, trying to beg for money from the other tenants. Sad, but not surprising. All I did was talk to him for a bit, rough him up, and then brought him to the old warehouse. And… well, you know most of the rest." Romeo took another long drag from his cigarette, now watching the road as the vehicle ran on the asphalt.

"Really? Just like that, eh? No fight, nothing?"

"Nothing. Guy was too messed up to do anything to me. Besides, did you honestly think I would let someone who owed money to us get a jump on me?"

"Fair point." Vinny had made a left turn onto a perfectly paved road with two lanes, leading down to a large complex with four guards on the outside. Each guard was dressed in a black and white suit, a striped tie, and looked clean shaven. The outer gate of the complex was decorated with silver bars and large patterns of cast iron. When one viewed the complex for the first time, they would immediately be astonished with the exterior. Four pillars with two small, white pillars concerted in the middle held up the balcony attached to the master bedroom. The door that led to the interior of the home was made of jarrah and had been adorned with patterned glass windows and a large gold and ivory doorknob. To the left of the main home was the garage: a white and black building containing the best vehicles money could buy. The vehicle came to a halt at the front gate of the mansion, the black and white tires now halted and the guards now opening the doors of the vehicle. "Alright, we're here. Throw that smoke away. Stop stinking up my car."

Romeo, reluctantly, tossed his cigarette onto the brick road leading into the complex, making sure to extinguish it by stepping on the half burnt paper. The duo, escorted by two guards, walked to the front door of the mansion, Vinny giving the wood door a good knock. A few moments passed before a man in a tan suit came to the door. "Well, evenin' boys. You here for Mister Toronito?"

"Evening, Don. Yeah, we're here for Mister Toronito. He home?" Vinny was always the more sociable half of the duo, greeting people with manners and such.

"Of course he is. You know how much of a homebody the guy is." The man in the tan suit began to chuckle, inciting the duo to do the same. "Well come on in. Scotch is on the counter. I'll let him know you guys are here."

Vinny and Romeo both walked inside of the home, heading straight from the entry way to the living room, taking their seats on a tan leather couch, with Romeo pouring himself a glass of Scotch. The interior of the mansion was luxurious to say the very least. Large beige colored walls surrounded the room, with pure white marble pillars encasing the bay window on the west side, of which was embossed in a decorative line of gold and diamond.

Within a few minutes of relaxation, the duo was greeted by a rather tall, yet bulky man with a grizzly and husky voice and Don the doorman. The tall man sat down in a tan leather love seat across from the duo, and, in a swift motion, pulled out a cigar and prepared it for a relaxing smoke. "So," the man began, "did you get it done?"

Vinny spoke first, clearing his throat beforehand, "We did, Mister Toronito. The mick is no longer an issue to you."

"Good. That prick was costing me a lot of money. Any trouble come to you's?" The man flipped open a lighter, burning the tobacco at the end of the cigar.

"Eh, a little. Guy had connections with the Union. I, specifically, had some, eh… issues finding him. They was keepin' him in the complex near 34th, guy was makin' cheddar for them by selling Chinny. Then, when we got 'em the first time, he called in his little pa-"

"Whoa, wait. Whadaya mean 'first time'?" Toronito puffed a bit of smoke into the air of the room, leaning over himself a bit, looking at Vinny as he spoke.

"Well, we got 'em twice. Both at the same place. He ratted us out to the Union once we got to 'em. Made us go inta hidin'. Second time was more simple. Guy was alone, landowner didn't like 'em, and he wasn't makin' as much Chinny as before. Union didn't even try to save 'em." Vinny stated these words in a cold, almost monotone voice, trying not to sound nervous or evasive to Toronito.

"Uh-huh, right." Another huge waft of smoke filled the room, originating from the ashing brown stick in Toronito's hands. "Well, you got the bastard, that's all I needed to hear. Now, what did we agree on? Forty grand, right?" The man stood from his chair, same with both of the men across from him. The two men in question nodded in agreement, each of them getting twenty of the forty grand take. "Now, I'll send someone out for you's when I need another job like this done, capice?'

Vinny replied in the affirmative, and Toronito led the two out of the mansion that they resided in. The two men got back into their vehicles soon after, slowly driving away from the home and down the hill to the city.

Romeo broke the silence first. "That went well."

Vinny replied shortly thereafter, a relieved tone present in his voice."Yeah, it did. Lot better than I thought. Where to now?"

"Well, did Da'Vin get out?" Romeo rested his head between the seat cushion and the wall of the vehicle, watching the scenery fly by him.

"Dunno. He should've, he's a tough fuck, I'll give 'em that much."

"Could always head to the Porterhouse, catch some sleep, yeah?"

"Sleep? After today? Jesus, Rome, you got priorities. We gotta make a stop by Oldtown, pick up some goods from Gerard there. Then we can catch some z's, sound fair?"

"What're we picking up?"

"The usual. Frenchie Coke, some thermite, and a little somethin' extra."

"What do you mean, somethin' extra?"

"I mean the somethin' extra that gets us cheddar. Don't worry about it, I got it all covered."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure you do. Just like when ole Tomisino nearly blew up our warehouse for the third time."

Something that one must understand before delving into the lives of Romeo and Vincent is their employment history. The pair were sent on numerous assassination missions for the York Union mob. They had been gun runners for Luke Collier, a man of pure rage who murdered those that crossed what was left of Route 66. They had agreed to become sleeper agents for an extremely gullible Polity, only to destroy a foundry where numerous mechanical vehicles were being made or in the process of being designed. They were people that were hunted. They were feared by those that knew them and respected by bystanders. It was a love-hate relationship between the general public and these two publicized criminals, and both Romeo and Vinny knew it from the start.

The sun was setting that evening. Numerous ships and cars were beginning to park where they were meant to park. Union soldiers began to take nightly patrols near the west end of the city. Romeo had 'bought' an old farm near the edge of the city; a place where nearly no one went to unless they were selling illegal substances or they were hiding from someone. One can guess which of the two options were on the minds of Romeo and Vincent.

AFTERWARD: Hiya! This is a new series that I have been thinking about and planning for a few months based around the gen:LOCK universe. Now, something to keep in mind, this story is NOT going to have very much relation to the main story of gen:LOCK. Sure, the setting is in gen:LOCK's universe, major events and faction changes in gen:LOCK will affect this tale, but I have no plans as of now to include any of the main cast of gen:LOCK in this tale. I hope you enjoy this, nonetheless, as I've always wanted to write something like this. Also, this is my first post on this site! Please give me some feedback to make this whole thing better.

One last thing, consider this a pilot. If people want more of this, they'll get more. If they don't they won't. Again, feedback is important!

-recll