First chapter. Jesus, I don't think I've ever tried so hard! I hope y'all like it!
The show called Big Shot had been cancelled two years ago.
They never replaced it with anything else.
It was a small victory for a nameless young man, a relative newcomer in interplanetary politics, whose wife and daughter had died in the Alba City tanker explosion days before Halloween that year.
Why, he had demanded, had a bounty been put up for the capture of the criminal? Why hadn't the police taken a more active role? Why did good, law abiding citizens have to rely on the wit and chutzpah of men who lived outside the law? Where was the army? Where was anyone?
Under pressure from the government, the ISSP was forced to declassify part of its files on the incident. They revealed nothing particularly useful except one name: Cherious Medical.
It took the threat of a government subpoena to force Cherious to admit to having a part, and release its files; when they were declassified public outrage shattered the heavens. Reports of secret experimentation on troops shook the public to its very core.
The Titan War had never been looked favorably upon, and the reports were so damaging that many officials resigned within days, fearing charges. It was useless, however, and within a few months many of them were indicted on multiple charges, or had disappeared entirely.
Then, quite suddenly, society was jarred yet again. In one night, the Red Dragon Syndicate was effectively obliterated. The hierarchy was so shaken that it was easy for other Syndicates to quickly invade former Dragon territory and smash what was left to pieces, divvying up the remains.
The occurrence left the solar system stunned and dazed. A driving force was suddenly stripped away.
How could this happen? Why was it allowed to happen?
Politicians jockeying for election tackled the question, citing the degradation of society and the need to clean up the streets - that degradation was, after all, what had caused it. The world had become so malignant and corrupt that the decent man couldn't make his way anymore and lived in fear. They called for a cleanup of the ISSP, and an end to the Syndicates which perpetuated the fear.
The public rallied behind these men, and a new feeling of optimism bloomed within tired hearts.
A second Red Hunt, as it had been named in bittersweet memory of the Red Dragon Syndicate, had been ordered, closely monitored by the government and the media.
The generation that had flung itself to the ends of the solar system found itself up to its neck in its own delusions and begun to blink its sleepy eyes.
Vicious was not an entirely sane man. On the other hand it would have been unfair to claim that he was insane - there was a fine line between genius and insanity and he trod it with an innate grace.
What made him truly dangerous was that he knew himself precisely. He knew his limits, and did nothing without thought. To know what one is capable of is to be able to utilize everything to the best of one's advantage. Even the parts he could not completely control - the sudden, subconscious thrill just before killing, sometimes - he understood. To be out of control was gravely wrong, to not understand was to be in doubt.
Which immediately explained his current temper. He didn't understand nor know how or why he was alive. He should be dead. His thoughts immediately turned to Spike - was he dead? Vicious knew that could not be answered right now - he remembered well enough he'd been the first to fall. Spike could very well be alive - but Vicious knew Spike's wounds had been grievous and lethal as well.
Not for the first time, Vicious wondered if his existence was some cosmic joke; Vicious had not been born faithless, although most of it had been wrenched from him early on and the rest of it had been cleaved from his breast by quite possibly the only man Vicious had ever considered a 'friend.'
Spike Spiegel.
It would be fair to call them polar opposites, at least on the surface. Spike had been reckless, while Vicious was deliberate. What tied them together was blood; they both thirsted for it.
"Are you thirsty?"
Vicious blinked. He had slipped, the voice had startled him. Granted, nothing in this sterile prison was much of a threat. Still, it was the principle.
"I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"
Vicious stared silently at the smiling woman, without a hint of the turmoil inside his mind. She was very plump and didn't wear enough makeup.
"Here, have some water. I'm sure you're thirsty."
Vicious was not the type to starve himself out of derision, regardless of any opinions he may have harbored. He drank the water.
"Feeling hungry at all?"
Vicious nodded slowly, since it would have done no good to him to refuse it. Apparently they had neglected to trim his hair, and while it grew slowly now fell halfway down his back. It wasn't important, though annoying. He refused to have it cut by these idiots. That was a chore to be done when he'd left.
"Salisbury steak or chicken fingers?"
Beggars can't be choosers and Vicious distinctly remembered eating worse at one time.
"Chicken fingers."
The woman's smile became even brighter, if that were possible, clearly delighted to get a multi-syllabic response out of him.
And she left, after setting a second glass of water on the bedside table.
The room was pristine, white, and cheerful, and a little glass vase full of pink flowers was on the table. Obviously they weren't from well-wishers and must have been a standard part of the décor.
It was entirely contrary to the bitter anger Vicious felt.
Two months or so ago he'd woken from a coma. He'd spent the greater part of those two months in physical therapy.
It still seemed a bit stiff to him to walk, though it was more than serviceable.
As soon as he had been coherent enough, the doctor had annoyed him with a barrage of questions. Vicious had given a false name - Frank Piedmont, Annie's dead husband - and had been informed that he was a 'private patient.' Put simply, nobody other than the ones who brought him here knew he was there.
If Vicious was anything, he was brutally efficient. The hospital staff was amenable in supplying him with the means to update himself on the two missing years, even if it was heavily biased and splotchy. The activities of the Syndicates were still closed subjects, although every now and then at a loose end Vicious sensed a story untold.
"You're being released today, aren't you, Mr. Piedmont?"
This time Vicious had realized the woman was coming before she came into his sight, and she found herself under an alert, icy glare. This man could scare the daylights out of her without doing anything.
"Oh, Dr. Neiman asked - are there any relatives you'd like to call?"
"None," he muttered coldly.
Vicious never had any relatives that he could remember. Lifted from the streets and virtually raised by the Syndicate - by Mao - he knew nobody that was a blood relative. Not that he'd have wanted to contact any of them, anyway.
"Are you sure?"
The woman wisely took his silence as an affirmation. She shrugged and placed the tray within his reach.
"Is there anything else I can get for you?"
"No."
It was seven that evening that Vicious was at last released from the hospital. It sorely irritated him that they expected him to pay for their services, he hadn't intended to survive that night.
And now that he had, they wanted payment, as if they'd done him a favor…
Since Vicious had no other clothes (his other, bloodied ones had been disposed of a while ago) they supplied him with jeans and a black button up shirt. His long, silvery hair was loose.
The sun was low in the Martian sky, a maze of brilliant colors. Vicious paid no attention, he had a destination.
I'm sorry, if you thought this was short. I'll try very hard to write longer ones in the future.
What has happened: Vicious actually woke up a couple of months ago, but went through two months of physical therapy to recover from the affects of being inert for two years. Now he's released from the hospital. Maybe I'll expound on his actual waking later on, flashback style.
Right, notes. The longer you're in a coma, the longer it takes for you to recover. Daddykins said so and I'm trying to be vaguely realistic. There is such a thing as a private patient. When you're admitted you're asked if you want to be a public or a private patient and basically what that means is that when you're a private patient and people call the hospital to ask where you are they won't say you're there. Even family.
Vicious' personality is hard to work with. The easiest explanation is to say he's insane. He's also really creepy in the guy-in-ConAir-who-doesn't-really-do-a-damn-thing kind of way. Not that Vicious doesn't kill people but he doesn't kill randomly.
If fanfic authors were writing the Bebop script half the time, Faye would have come back raped, beaten and tortured. As it was I think she just lost her hat and coat (too bad, I liked that hat). By the time Spike got to the cathedral she seems to have gotten a hold of herself.
Bottom line: This is experimental. I have never written a story with Vicious in it before, though I've seen every episode and clip and still haven't ever gotten enough of a grip on it. I cringe when I read fics where Vicious is nothing but a mindless psychopath, because he's not. I'm open to suggestions!
I modified this from its original state, because the original state kind of sucked even more than this! lol 10-13-2005
More errors I found. Grr. Stupid line spacing thingamabobber. 10-14-2005