#10: Urban Warfare #2
Two men were in the hotel room, watching some rather idiotic show where various humans made incredibly absurd statements about aliens having done everything. Their "conversation"-if it could be called that-seemed to be nothing more than barely coherent insults towards homosexuals and the American football team known as the Seattle Seahawks. Being members of MS-13, though, he couldn't say that he expected much from them.
Having searched through their minds, Darjil-Kentaar-now known to the humans as "Slender Man"-had discovered that they were the two hitmen that had been sent by the gang known as Mara Salvatrucha to kill him for wiping out their Los Angeles clique, including the "primera palabra"-first voice-Fernando Saldivar. Sadivar had been involved with a plot to ship millions of photos of the interdimensional aspiring conqueror known as Smile Dog. It appeared that the creature had also given Saldivar the inhuman strength and resilience that he had possessed in their final confrontation. It was just too bad for Saldivar that that hadn't been enough.
MS-13 was also likely trying to rebuild a foothold in Los Angeles in the midst of the escalating gang war. Funny how it was their death that had ignited the whole conflict. Them trying to become the most powerful street gang again would undo all of his hard-earned work.
Darjil teleported into their room. It took them nearly two seconds to realize that the eight foot tall, bald, faceless skeentesh was standing right before them. The two assassins barely managed to get off the bed before he had sliced open the torso of the man to his right with his hand. Grabbing the man's gun, Darjil pressed it into his wide open wound and pulled the trigger. The gun jerked upwards and the bullet ripped through the man's spine before exiting through his back.
The man to his left fired his own gun; the bullet sped into Darjil's head, unable to tear through his much tougher skeentesh muscle. He turned to the man and tore the gun out of his hand before reducing the muzzle to scraps with a single squeeze.
"Oh shit…" the man muttered before he was slammed into the wall by Darjil's telekinesis. Darjil slowly walked up to him, studying the fear permeating his face, but most especially his eyes, which twitched as if though they would fall out at any moment; the pupils dilated, retreating as far as they could even they knew that their possessor could not. He wrapped his hand around the man's throat; he had no intention to strangle the man yet, not when he wanted to hear him confirm what he told him. But if this creature proved to be uncooperative, then he had no qualms about taking the slow and steady route of execution.
"You expect me to tell you this, do you not? That I at least admire your bravery when you set out to kill something that you know shall tear you apart? That is what you expect, yes? But is is not what I shall tell you. Filth like you possesses no bravery; how can a man be brave when he sets a six year old girl on fire before decapitating her father? How can a man be brave when he agrees to give women a fake Visa-so long as they soothe his genitalia?"
Darjil ripped the man off the wall and turned his head towards his nearly dead comrade, the man clinging to his final shuddering breaths.
"Look at him."
The man tried not to. Darjil had to grab his jaw and forced his head upwards so he could not avoid the sight of his mangled comrade. He could hear his stomach churning.
"I know what you have done, both of you. And I know what you planned to do. And you have both failed. But your friend? He is the luckier one. Do you know why?"
The man didn't respond. Not even a slight jerk of the head answered him.
"Answer my question. Ten seconds; I am waiting."
"W-w-w-w-wh-wh-wh-why?" the man stuttered, before gulping incredibly loudly right after spitting the word out.
"Ah, so you want an answer. Good. I want you to live so you can go back to Mara Salvatrucha, and give them my message. I want you to tell them this, word-for-word: they will not interfere with the city of Los Angeles anymore, for if they do, they are interfering with me. This is my final warning to them. Should they not heed this warning, they may rest assured that I shall find all of their associates and tear them to dozens of unrecognizable pieces, slowly and methodically. And I do not jest. I will take down their empire and replace it with an ocean of their blood. Do you understand what I am saying?"
"Y-y-y-y-yes…"
"Very good. Now go tell them. And pray for yourself-hope that they will bestow as much mercy upon you as I did upon your friend here." With that, Darjil dropped the man and he immediately sprinted out of the room; his rapid footsteps died down in less than a minute with how fast he was running. Darjil looked back at the memories he had seen in the man's mind. He had been far, far away from Houston when the man and his daughter had been slaughtered; eighteen people had died in Baltimore because he hadn't been anywhere near the city. He should have exacted justice upon that brute; thrown him into the television set, burning him alive before his head was ripped away from his body.
MS-13 would kill him because of their own selfish and wicked reasons. Why would they care about the people they had murdered when one of their own had failed to kill him?
The sound on the television set suddenly became a dull drone. He looked at the screen and saw multiple colored bars, representing a signal loss, as he had learned over the years.
But then, it reverted to a dark, musty looking room. This was no signal loss.
What happened next made him wish it was.
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Tastes like piss. Not surprised.
Armando Ortiz thought this as he dumped the coffee into the trashcan. Everyone and everything around him was a mess. People were still traumatized after eleven of their coworkers had been shot dead yesterday by six fake police officers who were actually members of the new gang known as the Boys of St. Longinus. Bullet holes riddled the walls and some blood still clung to the building office's corners. Sports writer Trey Gardner's head was still horribly bruised from the pistol whipping he had received yesterday, and economics journalist Rainer Mueller still hadn't snapped out of his shock at shooting a man.
Come on, man, it was just the arm!, Armando groaned in his head.
One employee that they would surely never be seeing again was Lara Jessup, one of the Los Angeles Times' longest serving editors. Not that she was dead or anything like that; as it turned out, she had connections to the Black P. Stones, with several thousand dollars in her bank account having been transferred from the account of former Stones member Gary Norton. It was no wonder the Boys wanted her dead.
The Times' publisher and editor-in-chief Thomas Hellner had refused to allow the police to conduct a thorough forensic investigation of the crime scene. Usually, if somebody told the police to hurry up within a day or less, the cops would have no problem with arresting and charging them with threatening an officer. But as always, Hellner had serious leverage; nobody in the LAPD would soon forget the policemen who had broken into the Times' headquarters building and Armando's apartment to silence them for writing about the vigilante now known as Slender Man. They might have been moles for the Special Containment Procedures Foundation as Hellner had revealed, but none of the regular cops-and most likely not even police chief Charlie Beck-knew that. Besides, the LAPD had even bigger fish to fry.
A gang war had flared up once the news of the death of the Los Angeles MS-13's clique's leader, Fernando Saldivar, had arrived. What really shocked everyone-even the most hardened of cops and criminals-was the sheer brutality of this war. Just this morning, four people had been hacked apart and seventeen were wounded after a Sureños member went on a rampage with an axe. One of the people killed and twelve of those wounded weren't even rival gangsters; they were just regular people who had really been in the wrong place, at the wrong time. And yesterday, the Boys and their leader-the disfigured Luhlaza Lichtgern-had really kicked things off with the on-air murder of two of KTLA's news anchors and four Bloods before the whole place had been burned down with most of the people still inside. Outside, twenty one police officers had been gunned down by automatic weaponry and a police helicopter had even been shot down.
Something doesn't add up here, Armando wondered. Why would a new gang reveal themselves by going so far as to murder two news anchors and then run the building down? Why would some small Vietnamese gang that hasn't been relevant since the Nineties suddenly start gunning down anyone who isn't them? Why would a guy mindlessly hack thirteen normal, innocent people apart with an axe? This kind of savagery just doesn't make any sense. What's the purpose of this level of bloodshed? What kind of endgame's gonna come out of this-
"Piece of shit!" Abdul Harrak shouted as he pounded on the top of the TV. Multiple colored bars covered the screen and a monotone drone rang through the lounge room. The signal was lost.
"Okay, this is weird…" Armando muttered as a small crowd gathered to stare at Abdul's anger.
"Why don't you call the guy, moron!" Trey Gardner sneered at him. Maybe Gardner thought it was funny, but everyone else just glared at him. It surprised Armando that the jock could still have the nerve to belittle people after he had gotten his own ass handed to him by a fake cop. Not to mention that Gardner didn't notice his own repulsive bruised appearance.
"Why don't you go watch your team lose, ugly cunt!" Abdul spat back at him.
"What the hell is the meaning of this goddamn swearing?!" Thomas Hellner barked, drawing an even greater crowd in the process. Armando sighed in relief as Hellner marched into the lounge, walking past and ignoring him. As bad as being chewed out by Hellner was, it was far preferable to seeing Trey Gardner get really ugly. That level of homo- and Islamophobia wasn't a pretty thing to see, but Gardner went above and beyond with his slurs.
"The TV signal-" Abdul tried to explain before the signal was suddenly replaced by silence and the colored bars gave way to a dark, dank room. The sudden silence made Abdul and Hellner jump, and a chill shot up Armando's spine.
He had an awful feeling about this.
Shockingly, what walked into the camera frame was...Slender Man?! What, had the thing decided to finally reveal itself to the whole world? How-
Then, he looked closer. He didn't see eight dark green tentacles slithering out of its back, and this thing wasn't slender in the slightest. In fact, it was rather bulky. And right after it leaned into the camera, it spoke.
"Don't look so surprised" it said in a deep bass-baritone, similar to how a person sounded while trying to talk underwater. It was clearly nothing like Slender Man's deep, reverberating demonic growl; and yet, it sounded much, much more sinister.
"I'm sure you saw the commercials hyping this series premiere. All of the blood that's been flowing through these streets...the Los Angelite Channel. A crimson charm enhancing the lights, a glow of humanity's gravest sins…"
The thing stopped and laughed heartily. There was no denying the malice in the thing's voice, perverse joy and mockery bursting from it. Like Slender Man, the thing was completely faceless, but no face was needed to convey the thing's wickedness.
"Listen to me! Trying to wax poetical! Goodness, I can't take myself seriously like that; do you stupid animals know how hard it is to be dramatic? It's hard! Nobody takes you seriously! And yet, something so funny is taken so seriously by you simpletons" it mocked before it's hand rose, clutching a crucifix. "Some dude died on a piece of wood, rambling about he was the "SON OF GERD!", and everyone tears up!" It snapped the crucifix in two.
"Some loser that you aren't even allowed to show converts a whole region of this world, and now, because of him, that whole region is fucked because you struggle to figure out his successor!" It raised a star and crescent before it snapped it in half.
"Some...okay, what does this fucking star mean, again? Oh, who cares! Six million people probably didn't even know, and even if they did, they took too long of a shower to come back and tell me!" It raised a Star of David and crushed it into pieces.
"Now, I know those three cults aren't the only ones in this world. You also have the dumbassess who think a guy's in a cow, that wouldn't hurt a fly because of some dead Indian and a cult that takes your money and still sues people who leave it. And to me, that's fucked up! The problem with you humans is that you constantly put your faith in gods that you can never hear or see, touch and be touched by." The thing chuckled before it continued. "Well you know what? This here? This is god. You know how I found that out? Because I have power. And not some kind of apocryphal plague that I cast on a bunch of pagans in the desert. I have power that I can exact on the lesser things. Now you humans, you're pretty suspicious people, so allow me to demonstrate this power before your very eyes. Follow me!"
The thing then stood and walked over to a wooden door, the camera diligently following him. It pushed the door open and stepped into the room, stopping before a wall. The camera came close to the thing, revealing a young girl taped to the wall. The thing hummed as it grabbed her jaw and forced her to look up at him, terror filling her sore eyes, bags underneath them thanks to the nightmare she had been taken by.
"Cindy Marx! Such a cute and shy little girl! Adorable, absolutely adorable." It burst out laughing, clutching its side as the deep wailing emitted from wherever the creature's voice came from. The girl screamed through her duct tape gag, earning a backhand slap to the face even as the creature continued laughing.
"I-I-I'm so sorry! B-b-but, it's s-so...funny! I mean, look at this thing! She's fucking ugly! Who would want to go out with some Down's syndrome bitch like her? It's revolting! Disgusting!" The creature stopped to clear its throat and looked back into the camera.
"Sorry 'bout that, fellow citizens of Los Angeles. Looks like I was ranting; and for the first time in this message as well! Let's hope I don't get carried away again. Now, as I was saying, this little girl is so powerless. Like an ant, a rabbit. There is nothing she can do to so much as touch me. Now, I know what you're all thinking- "But you said you were a god that could be touched!" And I am-but only by the worthy." The thing proceeded to rip the upper left half of the girl's face off, emitting a muffled screech from her.
"What you're seeing is power! Raw power!" One of the girl's fingers suddenly flew off and zipped over to the thing, which plunged the appendage into its left side and then pulled it out to reveal a red chunk of meat.
"Now who the hell knew the flesh of a child could taste so exquisite? Me, of course! If I were to have my way-and I will-I would have this magnificent dish served at every meal. Just wait until you try it cooked!" The thing sniggered for a whole minute before it noticed that the girl was crying. Even without a face, it was easy to see the creature's annoyance at her pain, her suffering and torment.
"Well, well, well; doesn't somebody have really thin skin? Or is that too soon? Well, you're never too soon when dismemberment is afoot!" It immediately proceeded to rip the girl's whole left foot off with its bare hands. Her shrieking was almost completely audible behind the tape, eliciting a punch to the side from the creature; a bloody hole was created.
"You're thinking two things right now. First, is this Slender Man?! And second, why is he doing this mean thing? I'm not Slender Man. But I did come here because of that old fuck! Even after he gets called out for shoving the organs of criminals into bags, he still can't stop himself from acting like the good cop. Instincts, I presume. Oh, and a shout-out to Armando Ortiz, who is now officially my absolute favorite spic journalist! It looks like my pal Slender Man was just what you needed to actually get some fucking talent, you faggot!"
"Now, as to why I am doing this...I do this to show you what the power of a deity really is. Just because you kill one of these bugs doesn't mean you're a god. You have to have serious power to be a god. And when you have the power, the otherworldly ability to annihilate one of these things, then you have a place in the pantheon. So far, I am the only one in that pantheon. I do this to prove to you humans, once and for all, that there is a god among you. But this is not the end. I have something to demand of you. I know that, despite all of this evidence, you will still refuse to accept me as your god. And thus, my ultimatum-people of Los Angeles, you will have five days to converge upon Hollywood Boulevard and swear your undying fealty to me and to recognize me as the god you have been waiting and praying for. Slender Man, you will have six days to come before me, to fight me for the second and final time, so that we may end this comedic cycle and so the people can see, once and for all, true power. Fret not; I shall not attack this city any longer in the meantime. But if neither of those two deadlines are reached, then there will be real hell to pay. I've been quiet for way too long. I'm done with the backwards barn known as Alabama."
"I am The Operator; I am your saving grace."
That being said, the creature, the one now known as "The Operator", walked back to the wall and drew a circle in it with its finger before crossing through it. Then it stood in front of the girl, its head still turned towards the camera.
"I'm about to have my way with this bitch, because if you're gonna die, don't die a virgin. Am I right? Could you frantically move the camera around all over the place like you're losing control before ending this?" Apparently, the cameraperson nodded, as The Operator looked down at the girl before it placed its hands on her. The girl uttered a chorus of muffled screams as the camera looked frantically at the room before it stopped. The screen returned to a collection of colored bars and a droning noise before ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" suddenly came back.
Hellner slowly made his way to the sink and grabbed the edge. A tidal wave of dark orange, half-digested food rushed out of his mouth and into the silver crater. One woman's face was hidden in the trash can before she vomited right after Hellner threw up the last of the half solid, half liquid matter. Rainer Mueller's skin paled; a deep gasp, as if though he had swallowed something right before choking, emitted from his mouth before he collapsed. Gardner moved aside when he saw that the man was about to fall onto him and looked on in disgust.
"Ugggghhhhhh" Hellner groaned as he tore off four whole towel sheets; the faucet water was still running, having been turned all the way to "Hot."
"Somebody, move him...oh" he was saying, seeing that Mueller was already being lifted up by his co-workers. "Goddamn, what the fuck was the meaning…"
"And to think that you allowed him to come here" Gardner spat, now looking at Armando, who was still dumbfounded and left speechless by the interrupting video.
"What?! Me? What the fuck did I do?" Armando shot back. Hellner walked over to him as Gardner slowly came closer.
"Listen, you two, now is not the time for this petty-"
"You just had to write some gay story about a "superhero." And why? So you could rub it in everyone's face and brag about how you've finally gotten out of the writer's rut? Well I hope you're happy with yourself, Ortiz, because now innocent people are dying because of you. You go looking for respect, and you don't care who gets caught in the crossfire."
"Oh, what do you care about innocent people dying?" Armando demanded to know. "You never once even read any of my stories, and now you're trumpeting yourself as the representative of the people? People die everyday, even when there isn't some...some "Operator" here, even when there hasn't been a Slender Man, and your only reaction has been, "Now, sports!""
"Shut up! Both of you!" Hellner shouted at them. "I am sick and fucking tired of you two constantly bitching at each other like five year olds! Now is really not the time for-!"
"Fuck off, grandpa!" Gardner snarled, shoving Hellner away and nearly sending him to the ground. He turned back to Armando with disgust that was usually reserved for the sight of trash.
"I wouldn't be surprised if you're working with this "Operator" guy. Get some people shot up, kidnap and kill a little girl...no such thing as bad publicity when it comes to writing stories, does it now? Why, something like this only enhances the status of the man who wrote about the world's first real superhero!"
"Gardner, I am about to throw your ass out-!" Hellner growled, with Gardner cutting him off with a punch to the stomach.
"What part of "fuck off" didn't you get, retard?!" Gardner yelled before he floored Armando with a right hook that connected below his left eye. For Armando, it was like getting smacked with a brick. He spun once before he hit the tiled floor face-first, a snapping noise emanating from the left of his face. With his vision blurred, he couldn't really make out the blood he was coughing up from his mouth. Taking advantage of the surprise, Gardner stomped on Armando's shoulder and proceeded to grab him by his temples.
"For everything you've done to me!" Gardner screeched. Up close to Armando's ear, it sounded like the industrial machinery he had worked with in shop class, but without the protection. Unfortunately for him, it didn't stop there. The moment Gardner screeched that, he started slamming Armando's head into the floor. The vision that had once been blurred was pitch black again, his nose breaking on the fourth slam. On the seventeenth, his upper lip was torn open, blood gushing out of the open flesh.
The slamming came to a halt. Gardner screamed "WHAT?!" before glass broke right above Armando. Gardner began shrieking and sobbing, the cacophony growing louder when Armando heard him fall.
"YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE, I'M GONNA SUE THE LIVING-!" he sobbed when a loud snapping noise was heard by Armando. Gardner continued to sob, though this time, it was much more like pathetic crying than a mix of pain and rage; it was quite muffled as well.
"Gardner, you-you dickless...piece of shit. I've been-been waiting for th-this opportunity...for a while" Hellner panted in between heavy breaths. He spat.
"You're...you're fired!"
"My-my...God, my tooth!" Gardner moaned, his voice thicker and sloppier. "You all did this to me! You saw him attacking me, and none of you pussies did shit to help me! And now, I've got glass in me, and my tooth's been knocked out...I'm suing! This fucking newspaper's gonna be broke when I'm done with it!"
Armando heard Gardner scream with anger, but he couldn't see Hellner and several of his employees dogpile on him and carry him out of the building, kicking and screaming, kicking and screaming…
"Ortiz! Damn, you look like hell" Hellner said and shook his head. Disgust covered his face; it seemed that everyone's face had that look.
"What-?" Armando whispered. He didn't just look like hell, he felt like it. In his head, a throbbing pounded on his skull and brain, reverberating like the sound of a gong; his left arm was limp; and his nose felt like it had been sliced into pieces, dissected and grinded into a thick red gravy.
"I've called 911; the EMTs are gonna be here in a few more minutes."
"Gard-Gard…" Armando attempted to say. It was difficult to speak with a torn upper lip.
"You have a right to be pissed at that son of a bitch. Smacked him on the bruise with the coffee pot. We dragged his crying ass out of here after he couldn't help but rant a little more; had to get the parking garage security to get him out of here. He can sue us all he wants, we're gonna slap the living shit out of him with our assault charges. He's not gonna be working here anymore, so you can rest assured on that."
Simply not working somewhere didn't mean one couldn't set foot there.
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He rammed his fist through the TV, feeling nothing even as his flesh was charred by the electricity. Flames flickered into existence and smoke rose from the crater; white sparks soared out of the ruined set. Darjil tore out his arm and slammed the burning TV onto the body of the hitman, dragging the flaming metal and hissing wires across the already quite mangled corpse. It shook as the electricity ate the flesh, the flames chewing their way through the tattoos and crawling into the open wound he had made.
The plumes of smoke awakened the smoke detector. He didn't stop even when the shrill ringing intruded. He didn't even notice the knock on the door.
"Hey! What the fuck is going on in there?! I heard gunshots, something being smashed-"
Roaring, Darjil telekinetically tore down the door and the wall surrounding it, revealing one of the hotel's employees. The woman screamed her head off, and just to prove his point, he slowly dragged the door and pieces of the wall further towards him. The woman ran down the hall, still screaming and looking like she had seen a ghost. In a way, she had, since not many innocent people had seen him so up-close.
Darjil grabbed the smoke detector and tore it out of the ceiling before smashing it to pieces with a strike to the dead hitman's head.
"Operator!"
He smashed the window. Glass entered the healing burnt flesh.
"OPERATOR!"
All around him was in shambles.
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Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles' youngest mayor in over a century, took over the podium from LAPD Chief Charlie Beck. The reporters' usual expressions of bored curiosity were replaced with looks of uncertainty and fear as regular people gathered with them in the crowd, shouting obscenities and demanding an end to the chaos. It was still better than what had been going on when the emergency press conference had began; people would have to see the amount of garbage and even feces being thrown at the city's officials to believe it.
"You know who I am. I'm not going to waste my time introducing myself" he began quickly. The police officers surrounding him stood silently. Charlie Beck shot him an unpleasant glance, as he had a knack for introducing himself.
"Ever since the news of this unknown individual known as "Slender Man" came out, this city has been under siege. Crime rates have gone through the roof, and every day, at least twenty people in Los Angeles die a violent death. Of course, we have organized this announcement in the wake of the mass broadcast of the thing that calls itself "The Operator." Unfortunately, the young girl named Cindyy Marx is most likely dead, but we will do everything we can to recover her remains and bring some closure to her family. Now, the first step to stopping any further advances by this "Operator" will be to find and, at the very least, capture Slender Man. If we can kill the root of the problem, we will be one step closer to bringing this crisis to an end. It might seem difficult, but when people get fed up, they know how to solve a festering problem. And in response to The Operator's demands to recognize his supposed "godhood", I have a few words-the people of Los Angeles will never bow to the criminal element. We will never allow insanity and inhumanity to stomp down-"
The sound of a gun being cocked was heard to Garcetti's left. He turned to see one of the police officers pointing his gun, but not at him. Half a second later, the bang shattered his eardrums and the yellow flash erased his vision. Garcetti's bodyguards tackled him to the ground and a vibration similar to the previous gunshot shook his bleeding ears.
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The Operator was dying of laughter above the conference. That "moron Jew"-as he called him-was the most godawful actor he had ever heard or seen, what with his bored tone and the fear he had found in his mind after some rummaging. Did the mayor really expect him to be intimidated by his words of not backing down? Mere words?
And for him to say that he was another criminal-well, that took either guts or stupidity. As far as The Operator could tell, it was the latter. After everything he had displayed, all of his dominance, the humans still viewed him on the level of bottom-feeder burglars and rapists?
Well, I'll have to do something about that, he laughed in his head.
His mockery of the words said by Los Angeles' officials was interrupted by a phone call. Pulling the phone he had taken from a human out of his pocket, he saw Tothearks number.
"The fuck does he want now?" he growled, answering.
"Watching the press conference right now. I presume you have a particular reason for making that cop kill another and then himself, yes?" Totheark asked. The Operator made sure to remind the hacker to take his damn mask off when not on the job. He couldn't stand the muffled English he was hearing.
"Do you really think that I do things for my entertainment? Those two deaths serve a greater purpose! Black cop who's actually on the Bloods' payroll kills white cop on the Aryan Brotherhood's payroll. The info leaks out while the deaths are being investigated, the gang war takes a whole new direction. It's that damn simple!"
"Simple when you can read and manipulate minds" Totheark reminded him.
"Don't get loud with me, jackass! You can either do this next job for me, or you can sit in a hospital bed, having to eat liquid food for the next eight months! And you only get those two choices!" The Operator shouted into the phone. Totheark didn't respond for ten seconds. Hostility could make anyone reconsider the choices they had at hand. Hostility courtesy of The Operator could only be thought over for a few seconds before it became too horrible to consider.
"What job?" Totheark asked hesitantly. The Operator would have smirked when he heard that tone, if he had a mouth.
"I want you to find and make your way into Los Angeles' train commute system. Make some crash, start a fire-and in a way that it doesn't grow too big, a way for it to form a Pardtel" The Operator explained, referring to the cross through a circle that represented the whole skeentesh species.
"Fair enough. I'll try to find a way to make it happen."
"No, you will make it happen. And by tomorrow" The Operator demanded before hanging up immediately. He had better things to get done today than talking to Totheark. Like paying a visit to some of El Miedo Humana's technicians to make a certain present for the police.
Oh yes, the city of Los Angeles would feel this earthquake.
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Luhlaza Lichtgern just smiled and shook his head. Smiled and shook his head when he saw Mayor Garcetti get shoved to the ground by his security. The people of Los Angeles were running around like a bunch of headless chickens, demanding answers while not waiting to hear them. Such ripe conditions for a new tree to be grown.
Lichtgern threw back his head and laughed. The laughter soon devolved into giggling, a crude noise that sounded like a dying car engine rather than anything human.
"I like this Operator guy!" he shouted to the underlings in his gang, the Boys of St. Longinus. "He has something that no other criminal in the history of this whole fuckin' Earth has ever possessed! And you guys know what that is? Do any of you have the slightest idea?"
None of them gave an answer.
"Nobody? Okay, I'll tell you. He has style. Innovation. Pushes boundaries! You see all these gangsters and robbers and what-have-you, and they all go, "Oh, but I would never molest a kid!" or, "I still love my lord Jesus!" This Operator doesn't have any limits, no self-imposed constraints. The word boundaries probably doesn't exist in his dictionary. Tell me, which of you would be scared of some white guy with a chip on his shoulder or a Mexican with some tattoos?"
Nobody answered. Again.
"Exactly! Now would piss their pants if The Operator paid them a visit?"
Everyone except Lichtgern himself raised their hand.
"My point precisely" he declared with an enormous grin. One of the gang members kept his hand raised.
"What do you want?" Lichtgern asked him. "You got a motor disease?"
"I want to ask you a question sir" the man asked him.
"What?"
"The thing is, Luhlaza...I don't understand. How can you like this "Operator"? He seems like a real piece of shit to me. I mean, how can you condone the rape and murder of a little girl? Especially one with a disorder like Down's syndrome. I know we're all criminals and that, but even racial supremacists have morals. Shooting adults dead and setting a building on fire is one thing, but this a child we're talking about! How can you even think about liking this asshole? If you're trying to tell us a joke, Luhlaza, then...well, it's not funny."
Lichtgern stood there with his jaw dropped. The other gang members were staring at the man with bulging eyes and quivering lips, none of their jaws even nearly as dropped as their leader's. He tried to say something, to articulate an intelligent sentence. All that came out was a string of half-formed gibberish. Inside him, rage was building, wood being tossed into the fire until it reached an inferno of a climax. His eyes became filled with anger and his expression changed from shock to a murderous snarl. With his gums exposed, a Pitbull's angry visage would have been more pleasing to see.
He tore out his serrated knife and drew it across the bottom of the man's throat. The man emitted a single terrified gasp before he fell and clutched his quickly-bleeding throat, looking up at Lichtgern with his mouth agape.
"Didn't cut any carotid arteries, no jugular veins. Right across the esophagus. Gonna take you a while to pass out, a bit longer to drop dead-that is, if you don't drown in your blood first" Lichtgern told him. Reassurance, it was not. The man sat there and stared up at Lichtgern with an expression of fear-fear of death, most likely. Blood stained the front of his shirt.
A shot roused them from their terrified stupor and Lichtgern from his joy. The top of the man's head burst into blood and pieces of his skull. He looked up to see one of his enforcers, a tall and wide man named Cole Gershaw, glaring at him. Gerhsaw's Luger was slipped back into its holster.
"What the fuck's the matter with you?! I did not give you any permission to kill that fucking coward!" Lichtgern screamed into his face. For his part, Gershaw remained still and kept glaring at his boss.
"That man didn't deserve to die slow" Gershaw said. "He had a good point. If you want us to win this war, we can't do it by modeling ourselves after animals like that Operator thing. You gotta be smart."
Lichtgern stepped back and crossed his arms. Shaking his head slowly, he told Gershaw, "Give me your gun."
Without a word, Gershaw pulled his Luger back out and placed it in Lichtgern's outstretched hand. It looked like he was placing it into his pocket...when he whipped his arm up and fired four rounds into Gershaw's head. At point blank range, chunks of Gerhsaw's brain clung to Lichtgern's face, with the inside of his head slightly visible to him. He could see the back of the skull, the brain stem, what remained of the left hemisphere. Gerhsaw's body fell back and blood rushed out of the craters in his head.
"Now I hope you can all behave yourselves while I'm gone. You know what you have to do! Go meet up Humana's dealers and show them that we're not gonna be the puppets of a fucking ghost! Me? I've got a five hour trip, so if I can't make this deal, I'll be tired enough as it is! I will not be in the mood to put up with any bullshit that the more stupid of you start! Have I made myself clear?"
There was an uneasy silence.
"I'll take that as a yes."
Six hours later…
Lichtgern couldn't help but smirk like a six year old as he saw the expressions of San Francisco based crimelord Ronald Jheng and his guards. Here he was, some newbie in Los Angeles' criminal underworld, the leader of a gang that nobody had ever heard of until yesterday-and yet, he smiled, nodded and waved at the guards at the door, before literally plopping down into the chair across from Jheng himself. And once he took his seat, he immediately asked:
"Is this chair Italian made? Pure black combed animal skin-real leather."
"Umm...uhhhhh...yes, I think…" Jheng said. His brow strained and his eyes darted back and forth, as if though the language had been asked in another question.
"Damn good! None of that cheap Chinese sweatshop bullshit. Chairman Mao can't help you leap forward when he's six feet under" Lichtgern raved before realizing who he was talking to and the people surrounding him. His grin didn't falter.
"No offense, Ronald."
"Well, it's not like I'm actually from the damn country" Jheng pointed out before the importance of the meeting dawned upon him and he remembered who was in charge.
"Now just who the hell do you think you are, Lichtgern? Huh? Trying to talk to me without me even offering you a goddamn handshake first. Where are your manners, you burnt-face moron?! Going on and on about where my leather chair was made, whining about the value of Chinese goods! Where do you think you are, Antique's fucking Roadshow? There's only one of you here, so you better realize it'll take us two seconds tops to put you in your place!" Jheng shot at him. His tone grew from a barely controlled growl to unstable shouting. His fists pounded on the table, with Jheng reaching the climax of his tirade when he stood out of his chair and leaned over, somehow not spitting in Lichtgern's face. And yet, when he sat back down, with his face red and hot, Lichtgern stayed put.
"If you wanted a handshake, then you should have said so" he chuckled before he reached over and pulled Jheng's right arm towards him. The guards instantly went for their guns, eliciting a glare and a slowly shaking head from Lichtgern.
"Never overestimate the intentions of a handshake" he warned before going back to slouching in the chair.
"Now that the formalities have been completed, let's cut to the chase of this. You, Mr. Jheng, wish to supersede El Miedo Humana and the Russian Mafiya as the greatest syndicate of los Angeles. I want to fill the vacuum that has been left by the destruction of MS-13. I know that you managed to capture a cache of experimental weapons from the Sinaloa Cartel, and if we are to make it in this much more deadly and merciless world, we need at least a sixteen percent cut of that cache."
"We're willing to give away thirty three percent of the cache."
"Oh, but that's just being far too generous!" Lichtgern laughed with a great clap of his hands. "A charity, this is! We'll take thirty three percent, but only because you've proven that you have a heart, Mr. Jheng."
"The last gang that tiried to get our support wanted fifty percent" Jheng remarked. Lichtgern emitted a ridiculously loud gasp coupled with an overblown expression of shock. The two guards next to Jheng sniggered, and shut up once Jheng looked at them.
"Who was this gang?" Lichtgern asked. He sounded angry, but it was clear for all to see that he simply enjoyed eating the scenery.
"The 18th Street Gang."
"Should have figured" Lichtgern muttered. "Uneducated trash. No class when it comes to anybody related to the MS-13 assclowns."
"A bad sense of fashion is claimed by them, yes" Jheng agreed. "But a nice trenchcoat and pair of shoes doesn't block a knife to the back. How can you assure me that your gang can be trusted?"
Lichtgern laughed again. "Mr. Jheng, I have just sent forty of my men to meet thiry of Humana's drug dealers. And do you know why? Because I want them all shot to thousands of bloody pieces. Limbs, flesh, brains-all of it everywhere, all from them. I want to send Humana a message-his days in L.A. are numbered. Now, you would do well to keep your eye on me and my gang. Take off your kevlar, you're gonna get riddled with bullets. But if this doesn't say that we want to support and be supported by you, then I don't know what is."
"You won't try to embezzle from me?"
"We already have thirty three percent of your weapons, all of them experimental. Why would we need your money? Now, a few bags of pure grinded coke to snort, some whores you can't keep around anymore-that'd be nice every now and then. And we'll always ask for it."
"Can I trust you to not attack any gangs already allied with me?"
"We wouldn't lay a finger on them...first! If they don't hold up their end of the deal, we will strike back. A gentle warning. They do it again, we teach them why they don't fuck with the Boys the hard way."
Jheng looked down at his desk and closed his eyes. For two minutes, he silently sat there, pondering his options. Nobody made a move. Even Lichtgern didn't smile as the crimelord mulled over how to proceed. He had been the only one expecting how this meeting would go, but even he wasn't so certain as to how it would end.
Jheng looked up and slowly opened his eyes. The, he stood up and walked over to the door.
"Come with me, I'll show you where we'll sign" he said. Absolutely filled with joy and success, Lichtgern jumped out of his seat and gave off a wheezing laugh. In contrast to what had happened earlier, the guards exchanged looks of disgust and concern. No normal person should have laughed like that. It was more like a shrill bird call than anything human vocal chords should have produced.
As they walked down the hall, Jheng turned his head and asked him, "How do you and your men like your whores? High-class, or low self-esteem?"
"Don't know about my men, but I love the low self-esteem type. They hate themselves so much, they let you do anything to them; and yet, they're still not happy. They make sex so unpleasant! A waste of time, money and semen. Makes it that much more cathartic when you chop into them like a screeching onion."
Jheng nodded and wetted his lower lip with his tongue. "You seem to have a way with figurative language, Mr. Lichtgern. Tell me, how is a whore like an onion?" Two guards unlocked a door and they walked in.
Lichtgern smiled and popped his knuckles. "A person has layers, like an onion. The skin, the meat, the bones. Multiple body parts, all of which can be removed with a precise hand and a culinary mind. You have to remove the skin first, then you get to the juicy, soft part. The meat is really damn easy to scoop off. Hell, you can just shove an ice cream spoon and take it off the skeleton! And once you get to the bones-so much marrow! Mix it with the fat, and you have a real Melted Cheese Cocktail Shake."
"Quite an extended metaphor" Jheng chuckled. "We have sixty eight whores we just don't have the time or patience for anymore. With that many onions, I can only imagine how many Melted Cheeses you're going to be having."
"So many onions, so few knives" Lichtgern mused as the contract was brought before him. "Damn lot of papers you've got stapled together here, Mr. Jheng."
"Reading and writing is certainly a tedious activity" Jheng agreed. "But that's why you kick back and relax after such straining, such work. Do you like Romanée-Conti, Mr. Lichtgern?"
"What real man of taste doesn't enjoy whatever is produced by Domaine de la Romanée-Conti? These St. Jean and San Franciscan poseurs are like pop soda, always in the shadow of red and white vintage from Burgundy. It is a drink like that that can trace its lineage back to 1232. I presume you'll give me a bottle to take home when I get ready to leave?"
"I just might" Jheng smiled. "It looks like I was wrong when I first saw you, Mr. Lichtgern. I took you for a fool in blue. But you know what you've done? You've shown remarkable brevity and dexterity in the way you speak; to me, at least. Let this be a lesson for me, to never assume."
"You know what they say about people who assume, Mr. Jheng!"
"They make a really big ass out of you and me!"
"A gigantic ass!"
"And imagine, if you will, Mr. Lichtgern-so many drunk men with so many whores! And many of them so uncertain of themselves!"
They shared a laugh at that.
(NEXT ISSUE: The Operator is very quick to remind Los Angeles why he considers himself a god, and the gang war goes from bad to a complete nightmare. Armando struggles to continue his work after having been assaulted and amid the worsening events. All this in Slender Man #11: Urban Warfare #3.)