Shelley and Thunder had been full members of the Lampfront Sturdys skate gang for two years now. Initially they had been recruits in the organization, running odd jobs for members and passing various tests of bravery. Growing cold to the screams in the night, dodging cast-off containment units from the underground labs and staying aware around the mind benders were all part of the ditch.
After all the work was done there was still a final meeting with the gang's recruiting council where they had to answer a panel of confusing and at times insane questions. Whatever they had said was filled with enough vigor and hardass attitude to get them in. Graduation of a sort, a feeling a pride and a sense of belonging.
Being a member was no walk in the park. Their main responsibility was to guard the warehouse near the train lot on Chesterfield avenue. The building itself belonged to the family of several senior officers and was used for the meetings and also to do a slow business in stolen athletic wear.
Tonight was an especially gloomy night, the sky filled with clouds and a light sheeting of rain dropping down into the street in front of the warehouse. There was enough light from the street lamps to light up the block, revealing a number of parked cars and a huge dumpster which had been hauled in front of a nearby building which was being slowly torn down from the inside.
Shelley scanned the street in a long sweep of her upper body. She maintained a tight and sharp tension whenever she was here on duty. Not only did they have rival gangs and officers of the state to watch for, but also spazzed out junkies who could easily be packing a weapon.
It had happened on several occasions in the past that junkies had run screaming in from the night and attacked the guards at the warehouse's entrance. After four or five rounds of sweaty melee, all actors shouting and swinging their weapons visciously, the sweaty bodies would retreat. These poor fools took a serious beating each time but they were out of their minds and fought without regard for their health.
Thunder had a theory that due to invisible rules that guided the junkie bloodlines, a periodic migration pushed the herds of dazed actors across their train lot and their side street. It was as if the chug heads were under hypnosis and acted out of mysterious commands hidden in their minds. They did not talk or greet, simply attacking when the hour was late.
Most nights there was a guard posted around the clock. After the bars closed and the driving traffic died down to nothing their shift would be complete and a single senior officer of the gang would come and sit for the early morning hours. It was hard to imagine a day without constant air traffic and distant commuter vehicles venting who knows what into the surrounding city blocks.
Their outpost was little more than a shack with a window and door. Inside there was a table which had writing scrawled across the entire surface and legs, a television monitor which was at times connected to a movie player or antenna, a beat up old computer with dirt smeared across the dim and cracked screen, a small refrigerator, two tall and rusty looking lockers and finally chairs for whomever was in the booth at the time.
Before they were allowed to work this post alone they had been trained on the security procedures and what they were expected to do. Periodically their superiors would drive in from the distant suburbs and perform an inspection which mostly involved consuming any food or drink in the refrigerator and then briefly searching for pornography on an available terminal before returning to their vehicles and departing for the night clubs.
One person would sit in the guard booth with the computer and their phone, ready to notify whomever was on the streets at the time about trouble should it arrive. This was most common when rival gangs would stalk into the train lot or slowly ride up the street into their range. Associates from the surrounding neighborhoods would rush in to beat them back and typically the win was theirs.
The second guard had the job of walking the perimeter every 15 minutes and also walking the block in order to scan the alleys and surrounding lots. Both positions would put that person in danger and thus they were almost always armed and armored. They had a few tough coats with hardened plastic inserts, an old Wold War II style helmet and even gas masks. The weapons department was constantly under seige but they could almost always manifest a knife, a slingshot, a cheap pistol or failing all other options a sturdy length of pipe or chain.
The entire gang was networked across the local computer grid, their links all platforming messenger programs and chat websites. If you were on the street you were expected to be somehow in communication with your superior officers in the event trouble was going down or you were needed for work. If the danger was more serious they had securely encrypted emails, drop sites where memory disks could be stashed, and even an aged remote mainframe which was configured to look like the a mechanic's shop which had gone out of business last year but secretly provided communication services. Data blocks like video and audio recordings could be traded here when the need arose.
After all the work was done there was still a final meeting with the gang's recruiting council where they had to answer a panel of confusing and at times insane questions. Whatever they had said was filled with enough vigor and hardass attitude to get them in. Graduation of a sort, a feeling a pride and a sense of belonging.
Being a member was no walk in the park. Their main responsibility was to guard the warehouse near the train lot on Chesterfield avenue. The building itself belonged to the family of several senior officers and was used for the meetings and also to do a slow business in stolen athletic wear.
Tonight was an especially gloomy night, the sky filled with clouds and a light sheeting of rain dropping down into the street in front of the warehouse. There was enough light from the street lamps to light up the block, revealing a number of parked cars and a huge dumpster which had been hauled in front of a nearby building which was being slowly torn down from the inside.
Shelley scanned the street in a long sweep of her upper body. She maintained a tight and sharp tension whenever she was here on duty. Not only did they have rival gangs and officers of the state to watch for, but also spazzed out junkies who could easily be packing a weapon.
It had happened on several occasions in the past that junkies had run screaming in from the night and attacked the guards at the warehouse's entrance. After four or five rounds of sweaty melee, all actors shouting and swinging their weapons visciously, the sweaty bodies would retreat. These poor fools took a serious beating each time but they were out of their minds and fought without regard for their health.
Thunder had a theory that due to invisible rules that guided the junkie bloodlines, a periodic migration pushed the herds of dazed actors across their train lot and their side street. It was as if the chug heads were under hypnosis and acted out of mysterious commands hidden in their minds. They did not talk or greet, simply attacking when the hour was late.
Most nights there was a guard posted around the clock. After the bars closed and the driving traffic died down to nothing their shift would be complete and a single senior officer of the gang would come and sit for the early morning hours. It was hard to imagine a day without constant air traffic and distant commuter vehicles venting who knows what into the surrounding city blocks.
Their outpost was little more than a shack with a window and door. Inside there was a table which had writing scrawled across the entire surface and legs, a television monitor which was at times connected to a movie player or antenna, a beat up old computer with dirt smeared across the dim and cracked screen, a small refrigerator, two tall and rusty looking lockers and finally chairs for whomever was in the booth at the time.
Before they were allowed to work this post alone they had been trained on the security procedures and what they were expected to do. Periodically their superiors would drive in from the distant suburbs and perform an inspection which mostly involved consuming any food or drink in the refrigerator and then briefly searching for pornography on an available terminal before returning to their vehicles and departing for the night clubs.
One person would sit in the guard booth with the computer and their phone, ready to notify whomever was on the streets at the time about trouble should it arrive. This was most common when rival gangs would stalk into the train lot or slowly ride up the street into their range. Associates from the surrounding neighborhoods would rush in to beat them back and typically the win was theirs.
The second guard had the job of walking the perimeter every 15 minutes and also walking the block in order to scan the alleys and surrounding lots. Both positions would put that person in danger and thus they were almost always armed and armored. They had a few tough coats with hardened plastic inserts, an old Wold War II style helmet and even gas masks. The weapons department was constantly under seige but they could almost always manifest a knife, a slingshot, a cheap pistol or failing all other options a sturdy length of pipe or chain.
The entire gang was networked across the local computer grid, their links all platforming messenger programs and chat websites. If you were on the street you were expected to be somehow in communication with your superior officers in the event trouble was going down or you were needed for work. If the danger was more serious they had securely encrypted emails, drop sites where memory disks could be stashed, and even an aged remote mainframe which was configured to look like the a mechanic's shop which had gone out of business last year but secretly provided communication services. Data blocks like video and audio recordings could be traded here when the need arose.