Okay, this fic turned into something a bit bigger than what I had originally planned. But I hope folks are enjoying it. If you are, please REVIEW! Or even if you're not. It's what keeps us writers going.
What also keeps us going is people who help us read and make corrections to our writing. There's people who helped me a LOT with this fic. I won't embarrass anyone by associating them by name with this lil story, but you know who you are. Thanks a lot! It wouldn't be half as good without you.
There's no action in this chapter. Instead I try to get into the heads of the various characters, and Vicious makes his first appearance. This fic requires VERY careful reading! I'd be really interested in how good people think I am when I don't have people shooting each other left and right, so please tell me!
LEGAL STUFF: This fic is strictly for the enjoyment of readers. If I had anything worth suing me for, do you think I'd have a cheap hobby like this?
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"The entire Orphis organization is a wreck. Almost a hundred men dead and injured. The headquarters and several vehicles have been destroyed. The ISSP, the Army, Orphis police, they all want an explanation. Will you provide it for them?"
"Isn't that why we employ so many lawyers?"
Vicious stared back at the Elders of the Red Dragon. Their eyes met his without quavering.
Well, why not. The old fools can have me executed right here. I've broken the code often enough, as if that mattered. But it doesn't, and they won't.
"You have a defiant tongue, Vicious." The Elder to the far left, Wong Ying, had spoken. The most conservative Elder, and by far the most underhanded in his scheming.
"I defy nothing. I only state facts."
"As have we, today." Wong Tou, the Elder on the far right. "We are interested, Vicious, in knowing how you would punish someone who has gone as far as you have here in Orphis."
"I've removed a threat to the Red Dragon. There are factions within the ISSP that would have loved to get their hands on a 426 from the old days."
"Is that so?" Wong Long, the oldest and deadliest man in the Red Dragon, who occupied the seat of honor in the center. "Some say that this rogue 426 had help. The ones who gutted the headquarters building and defeated your men. Former friends, perhaps, from the old days?"
Vicious' mouth curved slightly in rage. Someone would die for that remark, and surely Wong Long knew it. Simply by mentioning it, he'd shown the strength of his network of informers. Kill one, but there will be another.
"After all, Vicious …" Wong Long's voice was rough, showing none of the polish of his brothers. "It wouldn't be the first time you let your emotions get you into trouble."
Vicious stiffened. How dare that old bas---
"There was that recent problem at the cathedral. Some White Tiger holdouts, is that what you said? Killed all your men? Very regrettable." Wong Long continued, his words like shards of glass. "And of course that little incident from the War. Do you remember that?"
Vicious' eyes were dark stone. His muscles knotted under the cloak, pleading, and he was very aware of the katana's crystalline length on his hip. I will slaughter them, I swear it today. I will see their blood gush onto the floor before me ... I will take their bones in my hands and break them into dust ... Their screams will serve as my music as I slice the skin from their flesh---I will---I---
"I---" Vicious gritted his teeth and suppressed himself savagely. "I serve the Red Dragon."
The Elders continued to stare down at him, letting the silence draw out his humiliation. Five minutes passed before Wang Long spoke again.
"Vicious. You will report back to the Mountain Hall on Tharsis. Your private funds will recompense the families of the men who've died because of your folly and pay all necessary costs." Bribes. "You will be restricted from all activities on behalf of the Red Dragon until further notice."
"You mean, until the next war." And there would be one soon, whether or not his men had to start it or not.
When they didn't answer, Vicious turned to leave. As he exited the Elders' interrogation chamber, the moisture of the outer room struck him. The old lizards required their air bone-dry to keep their ancient lungs from clogging with phlegm. Men scurried to and fro in the control room opposite, working to make sure that the holy Elders didn't feel an unnecessary chill.
Those damn corpses. They should have died long ago.
"Vicious-sama." Two of his aides, Ko and Turin, appeared. Ko's scar, a souvenir of Titan, wobbled on his cheek as he spoke. "We've identified Chan Ho Nam's DNA among the dead. ISSP has taken the bodies, but we're sure of it. He's dead."
Turin was a former White Tiger who'd planted the bombs aboard his own leader's shuttle when Vicious had replaced Mao Yenrai. He, too, had scars from Titan; in his case a tank-grown leg to replace one lost to a mortar shell. "The bounty hunters hid in the outbound traffic. They scrambled our monitors' tracking computers. We think they may have jumped to Earth, but for all we know they're already back on Mars. They have a good hacker." He leaned forward and smacked his fist into his hand. "We'll find them, sir!"
Vicious' expression didn't change. "Confirm that he's dead. I want his body seen and recorded. Turin, I want you to take care of it."
It was raining as he left the building. Men from Iblis Canyons, loyal to the Elders, fell in behind him. The sun had long gone, and the rain came down as white sheets through the streetlights.
"Sir, the car's here."
Two men sat across from him as the aircar hissed upwards, headed for the spaceport.
Alone amongst his guards, Vicious remembered.
Ho Nam's dead.
The older man's hand on his shoulder, the look on his face as he called Vicious 'brother' for the first time ... The heavy weight of the gun he'd handed to him. How could I have been so stupid to trust like that ... Even when I was young, I should have known better.
He could hear his own voice; younger, softer, furious: "Who are you to say who lives and who dies? Who am I?"
"You can't deny that man deserves to die. He betrayed the oath, surrendered brothers to the police." Ho Nam had been so calm. "And it's not me who ordered this. This comes from the Elders themselves."
"Those brothers were putting little refugee girls on the street---"
"And he should have reported it to his 426. Not to the filth."
That hand on his shoulder again. Gods, how could he have ever fallen for that ...
"I know it's a hard one for your first. I know you don't want to do it. But remember that he swore his oath, just like you, and he threw it away. A Red Dragon who throws away his word throws away his life."
Vicious snarled. And when the Elders forced me to break my word, where were you and your hand?
One of the guards from Iblis glanced at him. The pure hatred on Vicious' face almost made the man draw his gun.
Vicious forced himself to settle back into an impassive mask. Fools, nothing but frightened fools. I'll settle these along with all the others, when my time comes. Soon.
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Jet spooned the last piece of his slice of cake into his mouth. That kid knew his lemon frosting, he had to admit.
The first bite had been something of a disappointment---two rifle bullets had punched through the cake, and the taste of burnt gunpowder had made Jet's eyes water for a moment. But he'd just gritted his teeth, took a drink, and gave the thumbs up to Tylor and Faye, who'd been eyeing him suspiciously.
The frosting more than made up for it, Jet decided. As long as you avoided the burnt parts where the armor-piercing rounds had passed through, it was a damn masterpiece.
Nice of the kids to remember his birthday, he thought. Maybe there was some hope for them after all.
"Mr. Black, where do you want these?" Tylor came staggering in under an armful of hydrogen batteries.
"Next to the crate of Cup Ramen." Jet waved at the wall next to the refrigerator and next month's lunches. "I'll sort them out later."
Tylor set the batteries down heavily, then wiped his brow. "That's all the stuff that was left." He took a hesitant step forward and stopped.
Jesus, this kid was too much, thought Jet. That's what the Army did to you. "You can sit down, I told you that already."
"Thanks!" Tylor slouched down on the couch. "Those batteries were a killer." He looked around briefly, then stared at the table. He kept staring until Jet was about ready to strangle him.
"Go ahead, have a piece. You made it, after all."
Tylor's grin broke out again. "Thanks, Mr. Black!"
Jet nodded and dabbed his lips with the napkin. He watched the kid eat happily, even though he'd cut himself one of the pieces where a bullet track had run. For someone who had gone through the Titan War, he seemed pretty normal. Jet had met more than a few Titan vets---plenty of them had joined the ISSP and local police forces after the war. Shootings of suspects had risen astronomically afterwards.
"Mr.
Black?"
"Hmmm?" Jet looked up.
"Can I ask you ..." The kid looked away. "I'd like to go down planetside again, if you can take me. I'm going to re-up with the Army. Frontier Corps."
Jet stared. "Really? Are you sure?"
Tylor gave him a nervous smile. "I made up my mind."
"Frontier Corps. That's pretty isolated stuff."
"Yeah, I guess. You get good wages, though."
"Are you sure? You've been pretty useful around here." Jet put his plate down and looked more sternly at Tylor. "I own this ship, after all. If you want to stay, I'm the only who can say no."
Tylor fiddled with his hands. "No, that's not it. Everyone's been great. It's just that ... I don't know if I'm cut out for life out here. I had some bad times in the Army, but I grew up in an orphanage. The Army takes care of you kind of like an orphanage. I---I don't know how to explain it." When Jet gave him a questioning look, Tylor met it firmly. "There's this old expression from Earth, I don't know if you've heard of it. I don't want to be a 'third wheel.' Do you know what I mean?"
Jet just looked at him.
"Well ... It's kind of when you have two people, and they're, well---" Tylor blushed. "And there's this one out here who's ..." He couldn't finish. The words cloyed on him, stuck and didn't come, so he just gave Jet a weak smile. "Well, it doesn't matter. Besides, it's probably best for me anyway. It's a good way to get away from Mars, and I don't think the Red Dragon will try and snatch a Mars Army soldier all the way out on the Defense Frontier."
Tylor watched as Jet stared uncomfortably at the wall. I wonder if he does understand, Tylor thought. Probably. It must be tough with Faye and Spike aboard, like that.
"Mr. Black?"
"Yeah, kid?"
Tylor gave him a hesitant smile. "I don't have much stuff. I'd appreciate it if we could go now."
"Hm. Up to you." Jet got up and walked towards the ship bay. "I'll go tell the others."
"Uh, Mr. Black? Could we just go now?" Tylor had just some tools and the clothes on his back. He stepped forward. "Just tell Faye---tell her thanks, when you get back. Thanks for everything."
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Spike flexed his left hand, feeling the blood crawling back into it. Pain dragged along for the ride, twisting through his fingers as he extended them and curled them back into a fist.
They'd made a quick exit to Venus, Ed scattering false traces to and fro across the Solar System. They'd been almost a week in an atmosphere slot over the terraform islands. Jet and Tylor had gone planetside for supplies, while Lornette sat and watched the Venus spores fall like snowflakes to the planet below, not talking to anyone. He hadn't been conscious long enough to speak with her yet. This was the longest he'd been up for awhile now. The longest since Faye had told him thank you …
Where was she?
Spike pushed the thought away. "Like I care," he said to himself.
Those green eyes … he knew he'd seen them in his dreams. He couldn't remember the dreams, but they'd been there, open and trusting and oh so vulnerable …
I'm losing it, finally. This damn bullet's the one that did it.
For three years, he'd thought of Julia. At least once a day, she had come to him: beautiful and untouchable, glancing at him with the same distant, regretful look in her blue eyes. That look had entranced him, made him want to take her in his arms and protect her forever from the brutal, stupid world. What kind of world was it that could hurt her, that didn't know how to treasure an angel?
He'd never had to reach for her. She'd simply come, invading his dreams or his waking moments without an invitation, giving him that look that made him want to die for her.
But now it had been three days, and he hadn't thought of her once.
Spike plucked a cigarette from his pocket with his right hand. He lit it and let the smoke fill his lungs. His memory unwound not to Julia, as it always had, but now to a short man with slick, braided dreadlocks and two snow tigers leaping up powerful forearms. Leopard Wong, the first man he'd killed.
Why was he remembering that bastard? He'd been nothing but a grimy pimp who specialized in slashing small X's into the necks of his girls and young boys to mark them as his property. Ho Nam had told him the reasons for Leopard's death: the Red Dragon had offered protection free of charge to his stable, which he'd rejected. When one of his women tried to leave, Leopard Wong had broken her kneecaps and left her to die in the middle of morning rush hour traffic. She'd been saved by young Lin, who'd taken her to a Red Dragon clinic and gotten the story from her, as well as the fact that Leopard had begun buying refugee children for his stable of late.
Mao and Ho Nam were smart, Spike thought. They knew who to choose for my first one.
Because Leopard was supposed to be a martial arts expert, they'd chosen Spike and ordered him to do it with his hands. The message would be sent that it was impossible to resist the justice of the Red Dragon, no matter who you were.
Spike had caught up with Leopard in a smoky karaoke bar in East Tharsis. Lin and Angel had cleared the pimp's crew out the door at gunpoint. When they were gone, Spike had grinned and extended one empty hand. Leopard came in kicking, fear and rage knotting every muscle. For all the rumors on the street, the pimp had been only slightly above average. Spike could remember the fight like it was yesterday: the first lung-tui had been chest high and Leopard was off-balance already; Spike had slipped it to the left, dipped under and around the follow-up snap-kick. As Leopard began to drop his leg Spike bulldozed in, snapping the pimp's head back and jamming a knife hand into his throat. As Leopard gagged, Spike had thrown him to the floor and stepped on his neck. Leopard screamed once; Spike grabbed him by the dreadlocks and wrenched upwards, just as Ho Nam had instructed. Leopard's neck had snapped like a gunshot.
Spike remembered the nauseous look on Lin's face; Angel, an older man who'd been with Ho Nam since the camps, took him in hand. Together they wrapped the body and took it outside to the car.
Spike laughed at himself. He hadn't known what to do after. He'd just followed them out to the car, got in, and told them to drop him off near his apartment. He'd walked up the stairs to his door, fumbled with his keys, and thrown up on his own doormat.
For three days he'd sat in a corner of his apartment, not answering calls or the door. Leopard's face came to him, the look of shock still in his eyes, but more often it had been his own body, broken and dying and alone, that he'd seen. When he'd finally slept, it'd only been for minutes a time, and Leopard's silent, dumb, dead face had awoken him.
He wondered how Leopard had felt when his men left him.
In the end Mao himself had broken down the door to get him out of there. It'd been Ho Nam's idea to bring the children that Leopard had bought to thank Spike personally. The children's tears had brought him back to himself, that and Mao's own gravelly voice, full of trust. But even then he'd known that Leopard would never leave him.
Why am I thinking about that nonsense now?
Spike took a few more puffs, ground the cigarette out. For some reason, he didn't feel like smoking anymore. He wondered idly if Faye had ever thrown up after killing someone.
He knew that Julia hadn't, not ever. Julia, with the distant eyes … men had died for her, had thrown away their lives to shield her, to hold her, to seize her for their own. Vicious had killed how many, just for that privilege? And for a woman like that, what man wouldn't be happy to trade his life?
But through it all, those distant blue eyes had never changed. In the end, when he'd asked her to follow, those eyes had promised nothing.
And I've been nothing, ever since.
Something nagged him. He couldn't quite place it …
Redtail swept in over the neon hell of Space Land, cannons ablaze at the madman who wanted his life.
The sound of Faye's Glock taking the shot he'd missed, killing the Red Dragon who would have sprayed his insides all over a filthy Orphis stairwell.
He tried to imagine Julia piloting Redtail into a rocket to save him, or going into a Red Dragon headquarters for a teenage boy she barely knew. It was like trying to imagine her throwing up.
Stupid Faye. Julia would never have done those things …
Spike got to his feet and arched his back. His newest wound burned and stitches stretched. Faye would be pissed if he just popped them open again---
He relaxed. The stitches itched, and stayed.
What a lunkhead you are, Spike thought. It made him grin to hear Faye's word in his mind. He limped down the hallway, looking for Lornette.
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Well, I was going to make this longer, but I decided to just break it off here and leave you folks on a Spike/Faye note.
I was trying here to draw out the difference between Spike and Vicious. I tried to be very subtle about it, too subtle some would say … the main difference drawn here is that Vicious believes what Ho Nam asks him to do is wrong, but does it anyway; Spike did what Ho Nam asked him to do and only realized the horror of it afterwards. I think this is a major moral difference and it plays a key role in determining what kind of person they turn out to be. This wasn't the only reason for including Vicious among the characters in this chapter, but it's a major one.
So how was the chapter and writing? Is my emotional stuff any good? Too subtle? Too blatant? Did you get the message I was trying to put forth? Don't pull any punches! Hit me with a review, or email me @ ckrisz@yahoo.com!
Thanks!
