Chapter 3: Road Warrior
by Maxwell Sinclair

AN: I'll try not to be too graphic, but this one has a couple dark moments. I'm sure there are too many f-bombs for a teen rating but I remember high school, this has nothing on that. As usual with my writing it's not for the li'l ones. If you feel I should change the rating to M, let me know. Thanks for understanding.

"Madigan-san."

The light-purple haired Genom executive turned to look at her assistant. She was dressed in a smart burgundy suit with a modest length skirt. "Yes."

Her assistant sat looking at a monitor, "The chairman would like to speak with you."

"I'll take it in my office." She walked into her office, sat down, and hit a key on her desk bringing the lined face of chairman Quincy on a small screen in front of her. Yes, chairman."

"Investigate Mitsuhide's newest operative. This obstacle needs to be cleared. If it's freelance it could prove useful."

"Yes, chairman," Madigan responded with a slight bow.

District Nine of Tinsel City was a shithole. It lay on the outskirts of the quake devastation and only half the buildings remained standing. Over the years most of the residents had moved on. Even crime didn't come here, there wasn't anything worth stealing.

A number of the buildings that remained standing had been converted to factories. The world buzzed with an electric hum. A few residents tenaciously decided not to move on. There were even a couple local stores open and a run-down bar. Normally, I'd only be in a dump like this for the bar, but Genom wanted to purchase this land. The factories could easily be bought, half of them probably belonged to Genom subsidiaries already, but the residents just weren't ready to move. Thanks to previous suspicious boomer-related violence around other Genom land-grabs, the government was reticent about supporting a forcible buyout.

I had a theory that a dramatic increase in crime might convince the residents that change is a good thing, or maybe at least motivate the government to act. I felt a little bad about this; after all, these people barely lived better than squatters. A number of the residents worked sixty hours or more at jobs that barely befit a boomer. Sometimes, life tells you it is time to move on. This time it seemed life was going to say that in the form of an overpowered robot with questionable morals and too much time on his hands: me.

The key was to not leave any signs that I'm not human and ensure it couldn't implicate Genom. I like to think of my activities as talent auditions. I had a three phase plan to Operation Cesspool; demonstration, establishment, and domination.

Over the following week while my flesh re-grew I began burglarizing and terrorizing the residents. I've found that I can switch my eyes through a greater range of light than the normal human visible spectrum. This would have been nice to know while wandering in the darkness of Tokyo. It could be a recent change, something kept from assimilating that combat model. Either way, it was fucking cool.

To break a window without noise is an art. It took three times to perfect it. The first, I spent two hours chipping away. I have no doubt that I can break into an apartment without leaving any sign of entry, but that would defeat the purpose. Silently, I slipped through the broken window into the apartment beyond. It was a simple one bedroom design, most of the apartments here were. The kitchen was attached and this apartment didn't even have its own bathroom facilities; that was shared on the floor.

Lying on a floor futon was sprawled a sleeping woman, possibly in her late thirties. Her cover had come off and I got a nice view of her breasts. I noted this cause I took a moment to gander. Apparently, some part of me still thinks like a human.

Sight was not my only sense that seems to be improving beyond the human range. I can clearly smell the aluminum indicating that this woman had used a deodorant that included antiperspirant. I can tell that the neighbor two doors over has a cat by the sound of it cleaning itself. All of this is coming in handy for sneaking around apartments at night.

My goal, of course, is to achieve a sense of violation without having to really violate anyone…too much. Something about rifling through belongings and stealing while someone sleeps less than ten feet away seems to really accomplish this. Probably, won't hurt when she realizes tomorrow that she was sleeping in the nude, too. I had no intentions of hurting her, but she won't know that.

I took a beer from the woman's fridge and drank it while I began strewing her clothes about the room. I actually only stole a few beers (which I left about the apartment to show that I had been there for a while), some green hair dye, some makeup, and a couple earrings that were uni-gender. I wasn't here to make a profit, just to make her think I stole a lot, and the products would come in handy with phase two. When I left, I broke the chain lock and damaged the front door. Now it looked like someone broke in the front door and the window. All while she was sleeping, I mused unable to keep back a large grin.

The fact that I was getting a kick out of this is probably going to add on to my dark side points.

As I left her apartment I heard a uniquely distinctive sound; human flesh hitting flesh. I know that sound anywhere. Standing alert for a few seconds, I quickly pinpointed the sounds of argument from an apartment three floors up. I snuck up and easily forced the front door of the apartment open without more than a slight sound of metal and wood snapping. They really did make these cheap places too easy to burglarize.

This was a larger apartment for this building, it had two rooms. The room I entered from the main door had counters and a fridge, a low table in the center, and a futon in the corner. A child was curled up on the futon sniffling. He, or she, hadn't noticed me. From the room next door I could easily hear the argument taking place. I wasn't concerned with the details. It was the typical trivial nonsense, bills or some such.

I peeked into the room and, sure enough, a man stood arguing with a woman. I took stock of his face and quietly left the apartment. Unfortunately, I had broken the front door and they would know someone had been here. Oh well.

The next day, I waited at the train station 'till the man I had observed the night before stepped off. I believe his name was Yoshi. I jumped from roof to roof following him until he made the mistake of entering an alley alone. A shortcut to his apartment, sure, but no witnesses. I couldn't prevent him noticing the large sound from the crater that formed as I landed in the alley behind him, but that didn't matter. He had only begun to react when my knife pierced his kidney from behind.

For good measure, I stabbed him in the heart and stole his wallet. Sweet, I'm growing dangerously low on funds. He really might not have been that bad a guy, but he hit his wife (or girlfriend) and in my book that was a good enough excuse. I couldn't only rob places. I had to make this neighborhood dangerous.

The exhilaration from the kill still filled me with warmth. I couldn't stop here. Jumping back to the roof of the buildings I noticed an old man walking alone. He may be a nice man, but seriously, how many people depend on an old man for survival. His will should suffice.

I didn't want another crater from landing, this was supposed to look like human activities. That was a real fuckup earlier. I jumped from building to building on my way down. As I was at almost street level, I struck out quickly with my knife through the old man's throat, careful to not damage the spine. My momentum had been sufficiently slowed as to not create much noise. I quickly carved out the man's spine. I heard you can sell these. Before I jumped off, I grabbed his wallet, too.

After three days, four more murders, and nineteen more apartments burglarized (sort of), the neighbors formed a neighborhood watch. Unfortunately, it didn't help them much. My enhanced senses made it quite easy to simply avoid them and keep on terrorizing. Two days later and I was ready for phase two.

I stood looking at my reflection in the waters that had swallowed most of Tokyo. Not bad. My flesh had completely re-grown and my hair had grown below my shoulders. I had clearly been created for human infiltration. But why set it to look like me. I wasn't anyone significant. Right? As a one-hundred-ninety-four centimeter blonde, I certainly wasn't blending in.

Moot point. I'm not one to contemplate such pointless directions. Reality was here and I had plans for my next phase of charity work.

I got to business using my stolen products to cut my hair and dye it. After a few hours I stood once again looking at my reflection in the water. With stolen leather, self made piercings, and a green Mohawk, I looked like a bad New York City extra in an eighties movie. "All right. Now we're talking." I just hope I don't heal fast enough to force the piercings out of my skin while talking to someone.

I ripped a street pole out of the ground and broke it into a manageable arm length. Mounting the bike I had picked up from the punks when I first arrived, I sped off. By the time I reached some type of civilization it would be dark. Perfect.

On highway Nine I spotted them, a group of about twenty punks on bikes. Maybe I'll find a new bike. Riding up on the rear bike, I grinned at the young kid, he couldn't be more than fifteen or sixteen. He began to reach for something...I didn't wait to find out. Casually backhanding his face with the metal pole I sped up toward the pack as the crash sounded from behind.

I moved the bike up between two more punks. The one to my left attempted to take my head off with an axe. I grabbed his arm and kicked his bike to the side from under him then let go, he'll probably live. The one to my right swung a chain toward my neck. Naturally, I could have simply grabbed it, but I'm not trying to let onto my boomer nature. Letting onto my fighting ability, however, is fair game. I let the chain wrap around the pole, jerked the punk from his seat, and swung him around onto the ground behind me.

Shifting the bike into high gear I sped off the exit toward District Nine dragging the unfortunate punk along the road behind me. That's right gentleman, follow the bloody trail. Let's have some real fun.

It didn't take long for more gang members to catch up to me. The bike I was riding wasn't that great, and the guy I was dragging was still kicking and screaming.

A kid, maybe twenty, sporting some pretty decent liberty spikes swung at me with a metal pole of his own. My right hand and impromptu weapon were a bit occupied. He probably intended to take advantage of that. Unfortunately for him, I still had the dagger I had stolen from Nene's partner and could easily balance a bike with my knees. I drew the knife and in a swift motion cut off his hand. Then I just kicked his bike. Nice spikes but he shouldn't have let himself get distracted by losing his hand, in this city new hands can be come by. He took a pretty nasty tumble.

Another came up to my right but I slowed the bike and swung my right arm up and forward. He slowed his bike to fall back alongside me as the chain he missed caught him in the side of his head. With the added extra weight of his friend and the motion of the bikes, he was thrown off his bike as well, and it looked like he may have lost consciousness. These guys are wimps.

Meanwhile, two more had sped past and strung a chain of their own out to catch my bike. What they didn't realize is we had come to our destination; District Nine. I released the chain and pole allowing the limp form at the end to crash into a nearby ramen cart. See how he likes doing business in a neighborhood where bodies fly into him.

I leaped from the seat of my bike, let the piece crash, and landed with my knees into the left chain wielder's shoulders. Locking on to his neck with my legs, I simply grabbed the handle bars swung up and over letting him fly and pulled myself back down into his bike's seat.

The moon glowed an angry red in the sky. Naoko was sure this was punishment for having lost her knife. The event still left her a little queasy, and Nene's driving wasn't helping.

Recently, there had been a string of robberies in District Nine. So here she and Nene were, patrolling the streets amidst slums and factories. Clearly, she was being punished. At the same time, the AD Police could look like they care. "I'm sorry Nene-kun," she apologized to her red-haired friend.

"It's okay Naoko. I'd worry if you had to do this alone."

"Thanks, this place scares me. I'm glad you volunteered."

"Oh we'll be fine, Leon-san is nearby. He is off-duty tonight and said he and Daley would be drinking at a nearby bar. It's just a few burglaries. Nothing to worry abo..."

One of them screamed, or maybe both. Naoko wasn't sure. A body crashed into their window making it impossible to see as Nene screeched the car to a halt.

The air was filled with the sound of engines and mufflers. Out the passenger window she saw two more bodies fly from bikes, one into a store-front window and another into a parked car.

The driver's side door slammed shut and she heard the trunk open. Naoko peeked out her window to see Nene placing down a road barricade.

Nene pulled out a megaphone and shouted, "You are all under arrest. Stop your bikes and lay down on the ground, hands behind your head."

Oh my God, Nene's insane. She grabbed her phone and frantically began dialing Leon.

"Yo, Leon here. Naoko? How's everythi...?"

"Leon, quick...aaah." A bike leaped the barricade while the biker hung sideways and kicked Nene in the face with both legs. Nene went down hard and Naoko dropped the phone. She dived out of the car, rolled and grabbed Nene. Dragging Nene behind the protection of the driver's door she reached for her phone. "Leon, we need you now."

She risked a peek to see the biker that had kicked Nene dismounting from his bike. Most of the other bikes were already down, a few bikers groaning, some grimly still. He kept walking towards them. He was big, maybe almost two meters, and he sported a large green Mohawk.

A remaining biker sped up on him, clearly meaning to run him down. At the last minute the big punk jumped to the side swiping sideways with a knife. Somehow he got the height right, the approaching biker's head was almost cut off and the bloody mess ran right into her door-cover, the body flew over the door and landed in front of her with a few final twitches.

'Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit...come on Naoko. Pull yourself together. You're an AD Police officer. You can do this.' She raised herself back up a little propping her gun out the window and squeezed off a shot.

"Shit! That hurts. I'll make you fucking pay for that!"

Oh God. Somehow he had walked right up to her. Her shot had fired point-blank into the side of his abdomen. But now he was in reach to grab her gun. It was over. There was something eerily familiar about his eyes, that penetrating green. She couldn't move, nor even scream. It was over.

That's when she noticed the sirens, several of them.

"Guess you're lucky, lady. But I'll remember this." The punk turned and ran. Hopping back on the bike he sped off, as three cars pulled around the corner. Two of them sped after him while the other, Leon's, pulled up to the barricade.

Leon and Daley ran up to her. "Oh no, Nene. We'll get you both to the hospital."

She kept seeing the green eyes.

It took a little while to lose the police on my tail, but I managed to snag one of the punks while fleeing. He was on the back of the bike behind me. I'm pretty sure he's alive. Speeding further into old Tokyo, I pulled into an abandoned parking structure.

I couldn't help but laugh. That had been the same girl I took the knife from. I didn't really mean what I had said to her, I was actually relieved the other police had shown up when they did. I might have had to act to keep up the image, or come up with a good reason to leave. But the terror on that woman's face was priceless. I'm going to have to pay for years of therapy for her. I continued laughing.

"Well, let's wake you up," I spoke merrily to the punk I had 'acquired' as I lay him on the ground. Using strips of his leather jacket I bound his hands and feet and began to slap him a bit to wake him up. Eventually, it worked.

"Where the fuck am I. You ain't planning no pervy shit are you?"

I punched him. To him it probably felt like a bag of bricks, but I was being careful to not hit too hard. A crushed skull doesn't talk much. "Lesson one: Speak only when spoken to and keep your answers terse."

"Fuck you, ma...aaaah!"

I cut off his right pinky. Wagging it in front of him, I continued. "Now, now. Remember lesson one. Lesson two: don't make me repeat myself." I cut off another finger for emphasis. I was going to have to do this pretty quick or I'd lose this guy from blood loss.

He simply nodded and whimpered. I think he was starting to get the picture.

"We're going to play a game, you and I. I learned it from an American comedy film. It's called 'to the pain'. I'm going to cut on you. Unless you tell me what I want to know. I'm not going to kill you though, and I'll leave your ears alone so you can hear what a horrible freak everyone thinks you are. Shall we begin? That's a question, you can answer that."

He nodded with another whimper.

He was very helpful, only making me carve away his nose and one eye. Now, I knew where their rivals were. Of course, in this day and age it was dangerous to leave him alive. But I made it quick. His skull made a nice decoration for my new bike after I washed it up a bit.

The next day, I mugged a few people in broad daylight in District Nine to help maintain my hold. I needed to act pretty quick if I was to keep them from figuring out their problem was only one person.

That afternoon, I walked into a seedy bar where the Enma Spawn hung out according to my friend from the previous night. Not a terrible name. Not that great, either, but they're just punk kids, I can't expect Shakespeare.

"Listen up, filth. My name is Max and I'm your new boss."

They all laughed and a stringy punk in the corner told me to get lost. Maybe he's their current leader. I threw my knife and they all scrambled to their feet as he collapsed with it sticking between his eyes. "I'd really prefer we did this the easy way. No? Okay."

It took no time to dispatch this group. After another round of 'to the pain' with the last one conscious, I found the location of another gang. Their name had sucked anyway. And I got another decoration for my bike, there is always a plus side.

Irritatingly, I had to dispatch three more gangs. But at least this means I'm doing a good service to counteract all this crime I'm ensuing. By the fourth gang I approached, word had gotten around. Join me or die. These guys called themselves the Slashers. They were basically high school hooligans with motorcycles, but they would work.

"Listen up. Tonight, we begin showing this town who we are. We're going to start with District Nine. There will be plenty of profit and fun in this, but at the beginning pickings will be slim. There's nothing worth stealing there. This is a message. Raze it to the ground." Those words were accompanied with cheers.

"Try not to kill too many people. We're trying to spread a message. We need survivors for that." Hopefully, the neighborhood would get the message fast and move out. I really didn't want any of them hurt. "Oh, and if I hear of any rape I'm going to cut off your fucking balls and feed them to you. Maybe I'll serve them with some rice and seaweed."

I sped off with the brats to spread our glory. This outta convince the government to approve Genom's buyout.

It only took a week. Quickly, the police wouldn't enter (there wasn't any money in it), and the residents were afraid to leave their homes. I owned District Nine. I got the word that the government had approved the land deal, so I called a gang meeting at our local bar. "Boys, our message has spread. Genom will be moving in with their boomers. We don't want to fight that, so tomorrow we move to a new area of town. Tonight, we celebrate!" The brats cheered and drank up.

"Max-sama," number two spoke up. I never bothered to learn any of their names. I know he was the previous boss. "Your eyes are red. That's cool, I didn't know you had cybered."

"What was tha--"

In a dark room lit by multiple screens a man dipped a spoon into a plate of flan. "Interesting, is that really the army you intend to build?"

"Kyahahaha!" his laughter echoed in the darkness. "This rabble is hardly fitting. How will you deal with a change in karma?" He pushed a button in front of him. As a maniacal grin spread across his face his glasses reflected a deep red.

--t." Huh. Wasn't I just talking to number two? My hands felt wet. I looked around. The bar room was painted in blood. The remains of the hooligans were barely recognizable as human.

"...I am a monster."

TBC:

AN: Thought I had forgotten 'bout the bike, huh? It is BGC after all.