The Cinnamon Horizon
by Elliot Bowers
Chapter 2: Something is Happening...
1.
...
_____When the Feng Long Society took over this sector of the city, it was
sure to occupy the proudest buildings. The Society straight to the very structures
that housed the power infrastructure of the Network: the cyber-equipment, the
Deckmen, all of that. This was not an act of conceit; this was an act of symbolism:
By taking over the grand buildings that housed the local offices of the Network, the
executives of the Society were literally putting themselves in the seats of power.
_____The cyber-equipment was removed to make way for Feng Long offices
and facilities, and most of the Deckmen were properly disposed of. Well, some were
kept in executive offices as amusing talking pets--disconnected from the Network,
of course. Better than parrots--since parrots were, as far as anyone here knew,
extinct.
_____One of the occupied office building was where Sera's employer based his
own business operations. A three-story structure, its exterior was done up in gray
marble. Tinted glass gleamed in the bright afternoon sunlight. She passed into the
shadow of the building to get inside.
_____"Hello there, Sera!" said the green-eyed blonde seated behind the reception
desk, waving with a white-gloved right hand--a smile on her face... Hmm, yes, that
pretty face of hers was synthetic, and her dress clothes hid her metal body from
the neck down. Dressed that way, she could pass for a full-flesh human. "Right
on time, as usual! You can just go right up. Mr. Yin isn't too busy today, so he
should be ready to speak to you right away... Hmm... Gosh! You look tired.
What's up?"
_____"No more tired than usual, Janet," said Sera, shrugging once. "Glad to hear
that Mr. Yin isn't too occupied..." She then stepped towards the left elevator.
_____The elevator, not the stairs! Sera would not have been allowed to use the
stairs. Oh, no! Mr. Yin would not be pleased to hear of one of his most valued
employees taking the manual way! Though he had high standards for his workers,
he treated them honorably.
_____Going up... This elevator ride came to an end. The elevator doors opened,
and she came to a corridor that stretched to the left and right. Before her was the
set of double doors leading to an executive's office--guarded by a pair of seven-
foot guards in basic black business attire. They glanced down at her, nodded, and
opened the doors.
...
_____She went in, entering the vast space. The office had the grand size of a
small theater, along with some of the grandeur to match: dark-green marble floor,
with preserved paintings arranged along the left and right walls. Across the wide-
open space, at the other end, was a polished wooden desk--behind which sat a
bald, golden-skinned thin man in a dark suit. Newsprint was atop his desk, what
he was reading.
_____Small dark shoes silently padding, Sera walked across the hard, shiny floor.
It took a moment to get over to the desk. When she finally did arrived there, she
bowed her head slightly and clasped her hands in front of herself. "Good afternoon,
Mr. Yin. I hope that business remains well."
_____"Ah, and good greetings to you, Miss Sera," responded Mr. Yin. He placed
both his lean hands atop the desk. "As usual, you have pleased yet another client.
Your work is consistent, which is good. Better yet, your work is consistently good.
If all of those in your profession of your level of physical talent, then the overall...
MOOD within this sector would be markedly improved."
_____"Thank you, Mr. Yin," said Sera, head still bowed. "But I am just doing
what you pay me to do. I don't really try to be as good as you say I am."
_____"But you ARE, and it shows in the high praise given you by our clientele,"
he said simply and plainly. "And, that is why I have considered putting you into
a position of better status. I do not run this branch of the Society by myself, as
you know. There are those in more local offices who better oversee daily operations
on the lower levels. And, you could be one of them, overseeing business
as so the services become of better quality. But this is nothing I have not offered
you before. Do you still say no to it? You could continue your line of work, but
with a much more friendly schedule..."
_____"No thank you, sir," answered Sera. "I am satisfied with where I am now.
With the job I have."
_____That was the truth. She did not want any more responsibility or involvement
than was necessary. She didn't have the willpower or the confidence to take on any
sort of administrative position within the Society. Her job was tiring enough.
_____Mr. Yin nodded twice. "I believe I see why you wish to hold off on your
well-deserved promotion... Is it that you feel that taking on a higher position
would take you away from your family? Personal reasons?"
_____"Yes, you are right, Mr. Yin," answered Sera. "Personal reasons. I have
personal reasons. I do not wish to offend you by refusing the offer. Thank you for
thinking so kindly of me."
_____"You are welcome, Miss Sera," said Mr. Yin. "In fact, that is why I have you
personally come to my office... Because I value you so as an employee. " He
tapped the intercom device at the side of his desk, said into it, "Janet, have Sera's
pay ready." Closing the connection, he addressed Sera again. "Well, that is almost
all that I would have to say to you..." He leaned slightly forward. "Is there anything
you would wish to say to me? Any problems or concerns?"
_____"No... No, thank you," answered Sera. She was now becoming uncomfortable.
"I thank you for the attention and care you show me. And, if you please, I will
further think about the offer."
_____"Yes, please do," said Mr. Yin. "As usual, Janet will have your pay waiting
for you at the front desk. Keep up your good work." And, that was the end of this
meeting.
_____Sera gently turned and began walking away--towards the double doors
at the other end of this grand office. She opened one of the double doors and walked
out. The doors closing quietly behind her. She would take the elevator down to the first
floor, getting a purse--inside of which would be carefully rolled sets of credit-chips--
more money for her cache. It was taking care of that family of hers.
_____And Mr. Yin remained here, thinking about the young miss, the newsprint on
his desk. Well, there was always something to think on nowadays. He did not have a
large workload; the Feng Long Society was very likely the best employer in the
world. Maybe that was true because the Society was run by human beings, not a
damned computer in a floating city hundreds of miles away. The world situation had
to change one of these days...
____Things in the world, the whole world, seemed ready to change now. According
to some sidebar articles in the Network news-prints, there were going to be some
"slight technical difficulties" with the rest of the worldwide network. Steps were
going to be taken to redouble control in weakened sectors. That would mix very, very
well with some very tasty rumors brought in by Society members who took scouting trips
outside of this sector--rumors, coalesced into unofficial rumor sheets.
____The golden-skinned executive leaned back slightly as so he could open up a top
drawer. He had kept some select articles of such exclusive print. Out of the desk came
a manila-and-cloth folder, where he had stored certain articles of particular interest.
Of very tasty interest pertaining to certain tasty rumors.
_____According to an article out of last week's rumor sheets, there would be
haphazard and random "technical difficulties" for the next few weeks. Something
was happening up in the floating City of Zalem, and it did not sound good. Or it
DID sound good--depending on one's particular personal perspective. Dead bodies
were coming down the chute from Zalem--as if that damned master computer was
trying to get rid of people in a hurry. Or some other faction wanted to get rid
of corpses... And then, there was an increased demand for salvaged cyber-
equipment: Network switch-boxes, computer workstations and monitors, equipment
of that sort.
_____Mr. Yin nodded. That could mean two things. One, it could mean the damned
Network was finally suffering the sort of breakdown that low-knowledge maintenance
could no longer fix--and the replacement equipment requested was desperately
needed. Two, it could also mean that the conceited and frilly bastards who lived
up there in Zalem were finally having a few breaths of social instability-- interfering
with Network operations. Now back up that idea with the number bloody corpses
that came tumbling down the disposal chutes from the city...
_____Only if! Only if this analysis was true! Those would be technical difficulties,
indeed! Because the cities were made to run like machines, it was inevitable that
the cities would break. All machines break down, eventually. Even the machines
that make the machines break at some point in time, however look it took.
_____Across the office, the double doors opened again. In walked a dark-haired,
plain-faced figure wearing a black business suit--the standard executive
uniform. He had a thin folder with him, holding newsprint--carefully clutched in
his left metal hand. He was one of Mr. Yin's messengers. But he was back early;
the news could not be good.
_____The messenger stopped before Mr. Yin's desk; he bowed his head once. "Good
afternoon, sir. I have information for you. It is not urgent information, but you may
want to take a look at it." He placed the thin folder atop the desk and stepped back.
_____Mr. Yin opened the folder: just six sheets of print. Rumor sheets. For the next
few minutes, he found and read circled articles in the printed pages. The messenger
was correct: the information was important, but it would not require his immediate
action--if he could take any action at all from his position.
_____This was about the appearance of yet another "mysterious stranger" in this
sector of the city. They were once thought to be Network spies, sent in to investigate
the anti-Network occurrences here. But the Parasol Club had hacked the Network in
such a way that this sector should have ceased to exist within the databases of the
Network. That is, unless that damned ultra-computer up in Zalem was more capable
than they believed...
_____"Hmm... So, we have another one," he said aloud. He read another rumor-sheet
article. "According to this one, this newcomer is certainly not an agent of trouble. But
he seems to be there after something happens. After the fact, so to speak." He tapped
the paper. "This is the sixth time we have had mysterious strangers appear in our sector
of town-possibly bounty hunters who have somehow wandered into here. Bounty
hunters, we can kill: just send enforcers. Unlike them, WE can use guns when necessary,
not that we have too many guns of the kind that can kill metal-bodied cyborgs. Guns or
no guns, these mysterious strangers are somewhat disturbing!"
_____"Yes, sir," agreed the messenger. "Sir, if you recall, the last stranger to
appear wore a sort of cloaking cape--and he was very hard to see. The previous
'strangers' were probably just hallucinations. But this latest one seems the
most solid. Sir, it is odd how the rumor sheets seem to have named this stranger
'The Janitor.'"
_____Mr. Yin eyed one of the articles. "That would fit, as this 'Janitor' is
indeed described as a strong working man of maintenance and cleanup. Unsettling,
how he appears at scenes of harsh and brutal murders. Violence happens. More
unsettling, how is it that NO ONE has been able to follow him? Has no one seen
where these strangers sleep?" A pause. "Thank you for this information. I will
be glad to share this with my fellow administrators at the next Society meeting."
. . .
2.
. . .
_____The girl stood against someone--or something--almost twice her height and ten
times her weight. That "someone" was a real monster of a cyborg--a hulking being with
a body of metal and electro-mechanics. And that metal monster's fists did not look
like the sort to caress and care for anything. Hell, they looked more like construction
tools. Yes, great big metal shovel-hands, made of titanium alloy--with reinforced
joints. The arms to which the hands were attached were arms the thickness of
telephone poles. And the body was as wide as a diesel-powered bulldozer , hardened
annealed steel all around the chest and legs. Atop that massive body it was a bald
head that looked a bit too small for the body, a head wearing no less than a red knit
hat and darkened sunglasses. Not being able to see the eyes, that was probably the
most dehumanizing.
_____As for the much smaller dark-haired girl, she looked as if she could hold out--
against a human attacker. Dressed in a white tank top and loose black shorts, a person
could she had that sort of lean and athletic physique of an experienced kickboxer--strong,
shapely legs, a flat strong abdomen, and finely muscled arms. Her unusually pale skin, the
skin left exposed by her outfit, made her musculature seem carved in bas-relief. She had
red hard shoes on her feet, and had wrapped burlap cloth around her fists.
_____But if those cute red shoes or wrapped hands of those could do any sort of damage
to metal, well... It didn't look fucking likely! It would be a shame if that metal
monster-man were to do something to that pretty girl.
_____Which made things all the more ironic. There were at least fifty bystanders,
witnesses to this, and they just stood and stared. They would do nothing. They just
stood and watched, looked and waited. They wanted to see BLOOD, be it the
real red human blood of the girl or--somehow--the darkish circulatory fluid
of the cyborg.
_____SHRISH-H-H! The girl gave a slight grunt when the attack came. She
had barely ducked the diagonal swipe. That, though she had seen the swipe
coming as soon as the cyborg tensed his left arm. She could hear the slight
mechanisms in his arm powering up a quarter-second before the attack came.
And when the attack did come, the huge cyborg's arm swung at such a speed
that the air itself was ripped.
_____With his upper-body twisted halfway around from the attack, the girl was
free to land an attack of her own. THWACK! A swift and surprisingly
strong high-kick at the waist made the cyborg give pause. Another solid
KICK followed that one, and the massive metal man shuddered.
_____She did a dance-like step sideways, her long dark hair trailing like a wide
silken sash. This put her into position to attack again. The cyborg put on a
frightful grin just before he attacked--another SWISH. This time, his blow struck
flesh.
_____Not that the blow did much, but it was a hit! Just before the attack came,
the girl had swayed backwards and put up her forearms in a passive block. Taking
the impact, she was knocked onto her back, but only for a second. She then
seemed to bounce right back up.
_____Damn, attacking her was like trying to kill a cat with a jackhammer: too slow and
too unwieldy. Up again, The girl put on a series of swift and fierce kicks that went
right to the cyborg's waist! Kicks that went straight, kicks that came from
the side, and a really hard THWACK when she leapt and lashed out with her
right leg. It was a whirlwind of an attack.
_____Surprise mixed with structural damage, and the cyborg stood there for
what seemed like a long time--six seconds. He then tried to take a step...
Instead, there were some grinding sounds coming from his waist. Some smoke
came out of cracks in his metal exoskeleton, and a few sparks leapt out. A
grunt, and he fell back... Back...
_____The ring SHOOK when the impact hit. Grunting, he tried to get up again,
then gave up. It took an effort for him to slap the floor three times. He
lost this fight, and he knew it.
_____"Ha ha ha!" laughed the long-haired girl in the kickboxing outfit. "Yay!"
She raised both hands into the air, put on a dazzling smile. And the "witnesses,"
the crowd, sent up a massive cheer! Their doubts had once again been beaten--
along with that cyborg in the ring.
_____Into the ring came a bald man in black trousers and white shirt, the outfit
complete with black bow-tie. The referee. Trailing a microphone, he shouted,
"And the winner of this bout by knock out is the guest fighter! Lissette!"
_____That set the crowd to cheering all the more louder. They did not expect her
to win THIS time, though she had won every single amateur match they put her in.
Lissette was never beaten, and people somehow wondered how. Maybe she was
some kind of mutant.
_____But, then again, most mutants had some kind of deformity--weird skin or
misshapen limbs. Something like that. No, the girl looked normally formed as
far as anyone could see, especially with that outfit of hers. Yes, she was
beautifully formed.
_____And she had the brains to match. She worked for the Feng-Long Society,
worked on computers or something--as far as most people in the crowd knew.
Besides that, if she ever decided to have a change of profession, everyone
was sure she could get a job as an enforcer or professional fighter. More
derisively, some would have liked to see her become a whore.
_____She knew about what some of the people wanted. As the referee made
further announcements and recitations about upcoming matches, she smiled
and thought about what had been suggested to her at this boxing gym when she
came here to workked out. They wanted her to be something other than what she
was--currently a hacker. If only they knew how important her job was...
_____In fact, it was time for her to take her leave, to go do that job. If the madly
cheering crowd and the referee would excuse her, she would go get ready for work.
The referee still talking into the microphone was enough to keep this small local
crowd entranced. She had other things to worry about.
_____A slight hop down from the ring, a walk in the small aisle between the
folding chairs of the happy spectators, and she grabbed her shoulder bag before
leaving through the door. And she was out in the city day and away from the
crowd in there. The next amateur fight was getting ready to start; she could
hear the amplified voice of the gym referee announcing it.
...
_____There was a night club several blocks away from the boxing gym, a drinking
bar and a nice-sized dance floor. The inside of the blue-painted club itself was
quiet and normally lit for now--because the regular customers were at work. So
all that Lissette had to do was wave to the owner and bouncers sitting around as
she went to the beer storage area and opened a combination-locked hatch on the
floor. Yes, it was one of the Parasol Club's hidden computer labs--underneath
this club.
_____She stepped into the roomy white-walled cyber-lab, well-lit by three
florescent light tubes set in the ceiling. Two members of the Parasol Club
were in here, sitting at the computers. One was a bald man in a business suit.
The other was a teenage girl in blue jeans and blue tee shirt. Blue hair to
match. They were an unlikely set, but both were hackers.
_____There were just three computer workstations here, but they were
connected to quite a powerful server--a cabinet-sized machine with plenty of
speed and raw memory... The man in business suit turned his face away from the
machine for a moment. Said, "Hey, toots! I suppose you kicked that guy's tuckus
pretty well... If you ever needed another job, the Society could always use an
enforcer! Especially a fully human one!"
_____Lissette put on a smile. "You know the answer to that one, Sam." The
blue-haired teenage girl turned to look at Lissette--and smiled as well.
"Besides, where would the Parasol Club be without me?"
_____"Ha-ha... Nowhere, toots!" said the business-suited man. "We'd be
NOWHERE! You started this this gig. Thanks a million! Ha-ha-ha! Oh, I suppose
you wanna go get changed--though I wouldn't mind you staying dressed as you are..."
He winked.
_____"I'm sure," said Lissette, winking. Putting on a comically exaggerated "sexy"
walk, she stepped over to a side-door. Beyond it was a relaxation room, with a
connected bathroom.
_____In the bathroom, she put down her bag, took off her clothes, and stepped into
the shower. There was only cold water here, but she didn't mind. A twist of the
knob, and the water began to wet her skin. As she began to wash her hair, she
stopped. It was one of those prolonged thoughtful pauses. The shower water
continued to cascade down on her as a question echoed in her mind...
_____The question was, what if they found out? It was the same very serious
question that randomly came to mind. What if they did? If they found the truth?
_____As long as she was in this sector of thecity, she lived a very loose and good
life. But it was a false life. She was living a gigantic lie compared to the truth.
_____Maybe they would not care if they found out. Plenty of people lived very
questionable lives around here. After all, this was an urban region run by a crime
syndicate. It was an organized crime syndicate, and the Society ran things
pretty well. She was happy; the people were happy--humans and cyborgs, happy.
_____She wanted to be a part of this happiness. She wanted to stay in her role
as being the president of the Parasol Club and its role in keeping the Network
out! Keeping it the HELL out of here! Lissette wanted to keep this life.
_____But to fully enjoy the life she lived now, it was very important that no one
found the truth about her--about where she came from. If they discovered
the truth about Lissette, then she would probably be eliminated.
_____If they found out? She suspected the worse. She expected peopleto call
her a phony and kill her in as public and as humiliating a way as possible. So that
must not happen.
_____For some time more, she stayed standing in the shower, crossing her arms across
her abdomen, head bowed in the cold stream of water. The water continued to wet her
hair and skin flowing down the drain. In the shower was one worried, naked girl standing
in the water coming down--standing in her own little rainstorm
. ..
3.
...
_____The skinny cyborg sloshed some more beer down his mouth as he staggered along the
hall with his two comrades. "So Gale said... HEE-HEE! He started ranting about some
crazy shit about torn oatmeal packets and a funny little guy in a gray suit! HEE -HEE-HEE!
And then there was that fucked-up mess he said about CRACKED BOWLS!" Hiccup!
_____Though not as drunk or as wasted as Rafter or Gale, big Carbon himself was having
more than a little bit of trouble walking along this hallway. "Quiet down, you! You want
to do this or not? And when this is done, you can leave me the Hell alone about some
damned 'home cookin'."
_____Gale just went along with all this. Hell, if Carbon was doing it, he'd do it, too. And
he was just as drunk as Rafter--which wasn't a good thing to be for him: Gale's clothes
were extremely floppy, but they were just barely floppy enough to not be trouble...when he
was sober. Now that he was wasted, he was having trouble moving about. He could do
nothing now but just try to follow and keep up. They'd gotten this far into this apartment
building... Wait a minute. When did he get into this building? Why couldn't he remember?
_____"That's because you're HIGH, Gale! HAA-HAA! You can't remember a damned
thing! Oops!" said Rafter, nearly tripping over his own skinny ankles. "Hey, how many
fingers am I holding up?" Hiccup!
_____He stopped walking, blinking. How many fingers was Rafter holding up? Hard
to tell, since everything looked as if he saw reality through six layers of warped glass,
and he heard everything through distorted and twisted filters. Oh, Hell yes, he was high.
He couldn't remember what he'd smoked, or what pills he'd popped. He just had this vague
idea that he'd popped an awful lot of things while Rafter and Carbon drank plain old alcohol.
Now, where were they going?
_____"Here's an apartment!" grunted Carbon. BELCH! "Whoo-wee! Ain't that burp
been a real gut-kicker? Hmmph. Here comes another one!" This time, the tank-bellied
cyborg let out a bellowing, gigantic BURP that echoed throughout this hall. It was such
a prolonged belch that a person could actually smell it in the air. At least it didn't come
out the other end; the machinery of Carbon's digestive system was sometimes good for
doing that. "Okay, we're fucking here, y'all. Let's get us some more!"
_____Wait, didn't they just come from...eating? Gale had the vague idea that what they
were doing was unnecessary and very, very wrong. Just a feeling he had. It was not any
sort of mind-tearing emotion. It was the kind of feeling that gave you glances out the
corner of your eye instead of tapping you on the shoulder and outright TELLING you
what was wrong.
_____"On the count of three!" said Carbon. "One, two..." KA-BLAM! The portly
cyborg's left arm blasted through the clean metal door. There were the screams of children
from inside... Two children. They sounded young--and delicious. "Hoo-o-o BOY! Sounds
like we're gonna have us some VEAL, boys!"
_____"Hee-hee-hee!" giggled Rafter, a dazzlingly mad and wild look in his eyes.
"HEE-HEE-HEE! I've got first dibs on the livers! To HELL with the rest of 'em!" Hiccup!
"It's brunch-and-crunch time!"
_____"Shut up," muttered Carbon. There was an explosive sort of sound when he
rammed the ruined door with his left shoulder. The carpet inside muffled the sound
of the door falling to the living-room floor. Then came more screams...from the kitchenette.
Also loud was the sound of furniture being put into place, the sound of a table being
moved against the door, along with other kitchen furniture.
_____"Hee-hee! How convenient!" declared Rafter, taking a prolonged and final hit from
his bottle of red wine. He shook out the last drops, then hurled it--the bottle smashing
against a gentle-colored wall. "The food is in the KITCHEN!" He did a silly little dancing
trot across the carpet, between the furniture.
_____Over at the swinging door, he gave a shove. "Ha! Like the old furniture-behind-the-
-swinging-door trick is gonna work against ME! Never worked before. Not gonna work
now!" Another shove, and there was the sound of the furniture being knocked away inside
the kitchenette. The children screamed again when Rafter went in there.
_____Carbon went in too, followed closely behind. He saw Rafter going past the knocked-
down furniture and over to where a fat, matronly woman stood with a frying pan--two little
children behind her and against the kitchen cabinet. They must've been twins or
something... Anyway, he heard a thick and ringing sort of sound when the big lady's
frying pan BLASTED across the side of Rafter's silly face--knocking his head sideways.
_____With his right eye now looking diagonally and down, the other eye glinted with a
mad sort of light as he grabbed the woman's right wrist . There was a grunt and
a ripping yank, and suddenly the big lady was without her right hand. The frying pan and
hand both fell to the tiled floor. The blood followed, dribbling down red and dark, wetting
the tile floor.
_____Carbon stomped on over as the middle-aged woman shoved Rafter with her remaining
good hand, putting up some kind of a struggle. Hell, it wasn't much, but she fought
pretty damned hard for someone losing that much blood! "Shut up and sit down, bitch," finally
said the big cyborg. "You got to know how to put a woman in her place, Rafter." Carbon
then raised a metal hand and slapped the woman across the face--hard.
______Too hard. The slap was accompanied by the meaty sound of snapping bone and
cartilage beneath flesh, and the woman's head was now twisted too far around. The dead body
fell to the floor.
_____Gale staggered into the kitchen just as Carbon and Rafter were reaching down to
grab hold of the children behind the dead body. The little kids in neat clothes were holding
tight to each other, eyes clenched shut as the metal hands grabbed them. They SLAMMED
them atop the kitchen counter where meals were prepared.
_____His brain was too blasted with narcotics and stimulants to fully see what those two
did to those kids, but there were awful sounds that followed. Terrible sounds of crying
and children screaming--until the screams were stopped. Were they stopped? Even after
Gale was sure those kids were killed and beginning to be eaten, he thought he heard
them screaming...
_____He heard them still screaming... "Har-har-har!" laughed Carbon, helping himself
to a strip of raw bloody flesh. "Mmm-HMM... Tasty! Argh." With those sounds at
his back, Gale staggered out of the kitchenette. Those slight feelings he had before were
were now raised. Something was definitely not right now... Something was happening...
...
_____Gale's feeling was right, because HE was in the building. He stood at the end of the
hall on this floor--air currents an indoor wind blowing through. The powerful figure had on
his blue coveralls and work shirt, the bill of his hat shadowing his face. Both of his powerful
hands clutched the polished wooden broom handle, the head of the broom against the floor.
He was the Janitor. He was here to carry out his business.
_____"He's out there, I know it...!" came the ranting cyborg's voice, muffled through the door.
It was so quiet now that his voice carried through the hall. "He is here, and he can take us
away! AAARGH! Look out!" There were other more hushed voices in that apartment trying to
quiet him down. Yes, Gale had a real indication that HE was here.
_____His friends, though, thought that Gale's perception of the Janitor was just a drugged-up
hallucination. Gale tended to partake of certain..."substances" that led to...altered states
of consciousness. So of course he would talk crazy and tend not to make sense when he was in
that sort of state. Of course and of course, he was just seeing reality through the warped
and multi-tinted lens of a drug high.
_____Somehow, that drug binge warped Gale's sense of reality enough as so he could see
someone that was not quite there--yet actually, really there. But no one was really supposed
to see the Janitor as much as Gale did. Most people would get glimpses of HIM in quiet
shadowy rooms or back alleys at sunset, but no one--human or cyborg--should be so able to
perceive the presence of the Janitor.
_____There were more sounds of struggles and grunts in the apartment over there as Gale's
compadres wrestled to keep their drug-dosed buddy from doing something stupid and
dangerous due to the effects of all the shit he'd smoked, the pills he'd popped. But HE
was out there! They had to get out of here before HE got them!
_____No, that was not true. The Janitor was not here to "get" the cyborgs. He was not
allowed to do anything about people. HE was not really allowed to interfere. That would be
against regulations.
_____"HE'S going to get us! Don't let him take me... It's too early!" ranted Gale from
behind the apartment door. Someone said a loud SHUT UP just before giving the
drugged-up cyborg a solid THUMP across the top of the head. Yes, that shut Gale up.
Maybe he knew too much. He was starting to scare Rafter! And if Gale were to keep
up that sort of talk, maybe he'd scare Carbon into believing it...
_____Or maybe the Janitor did not really exist at all. Maybe he was just a collective
hallucination, dreamt up human brains in fever dreams and drug binges--brains in the metal
skulls of cyborgs. HE could have just been the product of what was a mass psychosis.
_____"Hee-hee-hee-ah! Gale's really over the deep end now, isn't he!" chortled Rafter
from behind that apartment door. "No fucking way there's some damned creepy Janitor
stalking us! Just some damned rumor!" He opened the door and stuck his blood-smeared
synthetic face out into the hall--blood around his lips and cheeks like grotesque spaghetti
sauce. "Hee-hee-hee...! THE JANITOR DOES NOT EXIST! HE IS A RUMOR! Hee--hee-hee!"
SLAM! He shut the door again.
_____In any case, if the Janitor really was there, then he stood there after having
completed a chore... Smiling. And, looking closely, one could see that he had some
things in his coveralls pants pocket-the left pocket. Because there were lumps in there.
Three large lumps. Not ordinary lumps, those.
_____One could see that those lumps moving slightly. Yes, those lumps were...breathing.
And the way the lumps had settled in his pocket, one would think it was for comfort. Two
of the lumps squirmed a bit, shifting in the pocket.
_____The Janitor used his right hand to reach over and comfort the lumps in his
left pocket. Yes, yes... Things would be fine soon enough. The Janitor would
deliver whatever it was he had in his pocket. There was a blast of wind through
this hallway and the Janitor suddenly wasn't there anymore.
...
_____"He's probably some kind of errand runner," said the petite, green-eyed
woman--the bartender, pouring a drink for one of her customers sitting at this
polished bar. "No one to really be worried about."
_____This was just one of several drinking spots scattered throughout this sector
of the city, but it could have been just any bar. But it could not have been just
any bartender. "Bu I wouldn't want to meet HIM in a dark alley-or ANY alley!
Ha-ha-ha..."
_____The customer here was a male cyborg, dressed in blue jeans and concrete-
dusted white tee shirt-a construction worker on his lunch break. The Feng Long
society-unlike the Network-fully recognized the value of the lunch break. He
liked hearing the bartender speak. She was beautiful and had a beautiful voice.
And there was something more than that about her...
_____"Look out for that one, Jake," she said. "He can take you away. I mean it.
All that his boss has to do is give a command... And there is no hiding from HIM
anywhere."
...
4.
...
_____Sera stepped into the apartment hallway, the carpet quietly padding her steps... She
stopped. Stray air currents blew through, playing with strands of her hair. A window must be
open somewhere, though this building's reconstructed air conditioning should have kept the
temperature cool and ideal.
_____Yes, there was a window open at the end of this hallway. There should have been the
sound of traffic outside--sounds coming in. But it was too quiet in here. No local radios playing.
No televisions on, tuned in to local broadcast stations that showed loud arena gladiator fights.
It was as if sound itself was muffled and muted. Something...
_____Something was wrong here, something not good at all. Sera stood still enough to feel
more stray indoor breezes brush against her bare arms and face, almost whispering across her
ears. Then came this awful, horrible cold feeling. She didn't know exactly why, but she suddenly
had this idea that...
_____With that feeling filling her, she RAN towards her apartment. Though only ten
meters away, though she moved wind-fast, it seemed to take too long to get there. The
door was left open. And there was a thick sort of wrong smell in the air. Something
had happened! She carefully opened the door...
_____And came into the living room. There was laughter coming from the kitchenette,
laughter from strangers. They sounded drunk and careless. There were curses and nasty
promises made to each other. Brutal promises of bloodlust and violence. Yet, they laughed.
As she came to the swinging door, she saw blood on the right edge of the door.
_____She pushed opened the swinging door to the kitchenette... Blood. There was blood
all over. Splattered here, soaking there, it painted all of the flat surfaces. Blood on the counter,
mixed with more blood on the floor. That went with the blood pouring down the sides of the
cabinet. Most of it was on the table.
_____The deep, thick red liquid seems to have been splashed atop the kitchen table, along
with the armless and legless torso of a chubby woman, opened up. Dead eyes stared out from
an even more dead bloodied face.
_____Shocked still, Sera's wide-open eyes followed a splattered trail of blood that went up
the side of the counter-top where meals were prepared. Except now, atop the counter, there
was another sort of meat. Two small bodies...
_____That did it. A small, sad sound came from within her as she move slowly to the
floor. Her back to the wall, she sat with legs folded beneath her. The kitchen now seemed
far and away. She felt herself sobbing. And she heard things as if filtered through water.
_____"Aw, Hell," said one of the strangers, sitting at the table. A big one. "Why do these
dumb-asses always come rompin' on back home after we done ate some people they know?
Hmmph, we probably choose the wrong damned times to do this shit."
_____"Hee-hee-hee! Home delivery!" said another one of them. "Why go OUT for home
cooking when it comes to you?" As if in slow motion, Sera saw the giggling skinny one in thin
black businessclothing--wet with blood--get up from where he sat at the table. "Hee-hee-hee...
And THIS one looks delicious!"
_____"What the fuck? You STILL can't be hungry!" said the big one again. "Just knock that
dumb bitch out. That's all you gotta do. That's all you SHOULD do... Hmmph, y'all always
gettin' carried away, eatin' full-flesh people like you're at some fucked-up all-you-can-eat
restaurant."
_____Sera looked up at the skinny cyborg in skinny black business clothes--his dress
jacket with large dring patches of blood. Not his blood. "HEE-HEE! Sure, Carbon! I'll
KNOCK HER OUT! Hee-hee-hee! Hell yes! Yes-yes-yes-yes..." THWACK!
_____The first blow caught her in the left side of her chest, a kick to the ribs. Oddly enough,
there was not much pain. She just felt her strength leaving her. Everything seemed to be
going far away, feeling herself being carried away into darkness as unconsciousness closed
over her. Carried away into the darkness of unconsciousness, she was lucky not to have felt
the following blows to her body, the mad sound of the mad cyborg's laughter as he HIT and HIT
and...
...
_____She found herself somewhere else, laid on a hard shiny floor. It felt like polished black
marble under her palms as she sat up. It gleamed with the sheen of marble under the glare of
the bright yellow spotlight that glared down on her. All around was a ver dim sort of gloom.
_____Was she dreaming? When dreaming, it was very hard to tell. But this felt like more
than a dream--much more...significant. And what was that swishing sound? Was someone
sweeping in the darkness? She opened her mouth, ready to call out. Before she could
though, she recieved another sort of greeting.
_____Another spotlight faded on. This time, a white spotlight. It shone on a pale, slender
woman standing atop a circular wooden table. She really was that bright white color, all over.
Her pale blonde hair was the same tone as her white-light skin. And the sleeveless silky
gown matched the tone of her skin. The only thing not pale about her seemed to be her large
eyes--large and blood-red. She was an ethereal figure like that could only come out of a dream.
Or a nightmare.
_____"Get up!" said the Dream Woman. "Your bowl is not broken, just cracked. And you
are still not in the breeze! So you WILL stand... You will go!" She raised a slim arm to point
to Sera, sitting in the other spotlight. "You have lost bowls, and so you will BREAK those
responsible!"
_____What? Sera tried to stand, but could not. She shook her head. No. No. She could
not stand just now... But the Dream Woman insisted it. "GET UP! Stand up! This will be
done! Ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha! You will do what you will do, for I wish it so!"
_____There was the sound of sweeping, and Sera thought she saw a shadowy sort of figure
coming in her direction. Hard to tell, as everything was so damned dark outside of the
spotlights. But she knew someone was there as she heard the sound of a broom brush
moving. Then she felt something grab her around the midsection and she was being carried
away just as she tried to get up.
...
_____And she still struggled to stand. Get up! But Sera was not sure if she could. She
was too afraid to look down at herself, not knowing what those crazy cyborgs had done to
her body while she was knocked unconscious. All that she knew was that she had been badly
hurt. Her right arm felt useless, numb from the elbow down. It hurt to breathe, sharp pains in
the left side of her chest. The left side of her face ached. There was an awful ache in another
place, meaning that they had done some other things to her. Things she did not want to think
about just now.
_____Get up. It was not just a thought, it was an insistence. The pains of her body were
getting to her head, making her feel dizzy-almost putting her out again. She used her
uninjured arm to sit up very, very carefully. Using care, she went to her knees before
trying to stand. Get up...
_____Get up and get out. Because her gasping breaths were accompanied by the smell of
something beginning to burn! Oh no...! If she fell now, then there would be no getting up
and out at all. Jefty and Jane were here--her little sister and brother. Martha, the Nanny,
was still left here too...
_____No, insisted thoughts in Sera's head. These thoughts not quite her own thoughts.
They seemed to come from somewhere else. These thoughts were telling her something
Else, things she did not want to hear.
_____No, only the bodies were here-what was left of them. DEAD bodies. They were killed
and mutilated, partially eaten. What was left was NOT alive. The dead meat atop the
kitchen table and on the formica counter, that was not her family. Now all of her family was
dead. And so would she be if she stayed here-the thick smell of burning becoming thicker.
If her vision hadn't been so blurred and darkened with pain, maybe she would see the smoke.
_____ Smoke was what came with fire. There was smoke here, and the smell was getting
thicker. If she stayed, if she fell, she would see the fire and be burned to death. Or maybe she
should stay here with the dead. She felt so hurt. It would feel so good to just lie down and
go to sleep.
_____No, you fool! Angry, red-eyed thoughts came to her again. You will NOT lie here.
Because this place is going to flames! This place of dark violence is going to be burned up.
Yes, Sera, it's going to become hot here, yellow fire all over the floor and filling this apartment.
Flames will dance across the ceiling. Everything will be gone. Gone.
_____So get out! Sobbing and gasping, dizzy and hurting, Sera left the bloody kitchenette.
She pushed open the swinging door with her left hand and staggered out of the kitchenette.
Now, she could see the faint gray mist of the coming smoke. Before, she just smelled it. She
had to get out of here! Walking around the couch and past an armchair, she made it to the
door. Just before she left, she thought she glimpsed a figure...
_____No, there was no one there. She must have been crazy, thinking there was. And she
closed the door behind her. The elevator was nearby. As she walked over in that direction,
she could hear a dull and low roar coming from over in her apartment. There was definitely
something happening in her apartment now. Fire was happening. There was a blast of air in
the hallway, probably from the temperature difference.
_____She staggered into the elevator..and nearly tripped over a very familiar oversized
purse. Her purse. It was a money cache-her money cache. But how? No matter how, she
had it. Someone must have put it in the elevator for her. Maybe, the man in blue she'd
glimpsed just before she'd left her apartment had... No, that would be just impossible. Who
was he? And where had she seen him before?
_____Forget it. That didn't matter now. What did matter now was that she had her cache of
credit chips, slung over her left shoulder and away from her numb arm. It was most all of what
she'd earned and saved, in large denomination chips. Unlike the rulership of the Network,
the Feng-Long Society had money houses-buildings where people could have their
money held...for a moderate fee, of course. But habit from early childhood kept Sera to
holding most of her own money in hiding; she only kept some of it in the money houses.
_____After this, she would put half of this money into her money-house account. Or most
of it now, because there was no way she could keep it safe in her condition. She would use
the rest of it to follow a plan that had come to mind. It was a very simple and basic plan,
but it would be the most important plan of her life.
_____Now her life would be very different. There was no way she could go back to being
a prostitute--not with the severe injuries she had. These were the sorts of hurts that would leave
scars and marks. There were probably doctors, sponsored by the Society, who could fix Sera
in a way as so she had few and faint scars. Maybe... But that probably would not be good
enough. It would not be good enough for her. Not good enough at all. It was time to
become a member of another type of profession.
_____But how? First, she needed to learn how to fight. But she couldn't fight. She had never
fought in her life, had only struggled--then run--when trouble came. And anyone who could
fight was professional-like those bounty hunters of the Network, like the Enforcers of the
Society, or like those professional fighters at the arenas and gyms. Most of them were cyborgs,
so she had to...
_____ The elevator doors opened, and Sera stepped onto the ground-floor , where a small
crowd of people were heading for the stairs. They carried buckets full of fire-suppressing
chemicals, kept in a big tank in a storage room just in case the custom-installed fire sprinkler
system wasn't working.
_____Yet that wasn't a fire they would have to worry about-or be able to put out. The fire
would only be restricted to Sera's apartment. And it was not the kind of fire they would be
able to put out, anyway. It was a different kind of fire, an unbelievably powerful kind. No,
not even the strongest fire-suppressing liquids on Earth could stop a fire started by that
mysterious stranger. The fire in that apartment would have to be left to stop on its own.