A Circle of Fate and Pain
by Elliot Bowers
Chapter 8—The Pains of Somebody Else
…
1.
Healed though he was, he was still hot and dirty. The physical recovery given to him now made him aware of his slovenly and weak condition. It was getting to be late in the afternoon, and Jack Bent hadn't washed himself up yet—grimy since yesterday. Or for that matter, he hadn't washed these clothes in days. His shirt was taking on a sticky feeling after having long since beginning to smell, and his slacks were no longer so slack in that they were becoming oily and thick with dirt and grime. The last foew days of hot afternoon sweat were soaked in with the grimy clothes, moist sweat mixed with the slightly toxic air pollution. Sweat plus toxic air pollution made for clothes that ought not be worn for too long. Really, having to worry about being clean and eating...and feeling sick... Being human sucks.
Getting clean costs money. Jack Bent visited one of his cash caches in the abandoned industrial area at the edge of Tire-Wire Alley--a fenced-off and abandoned area said to be full of mutants--grotesque and deformed once-humans whose skin and bodies were made deformed because of the toxicity in bad water supplies. Or maybe it was secretly home to hoards of biting rats lousy with diseases and chemical contamination in their blood--so that when they bit humans, they caused limbs to rot off the body. He needed to get some more money from his cache.
He went beyond the fence to enter the big and abandoned industrial area, then made a quick jog towards one building in particular on the left--his sneakers padding along the hard hot pavement of the cracked parking lot. His jogging them brought him 'round back of that one big building. Consequently, this side of the building actually faced away from Tire-Wire Alley--facing the wide stretch of flat and wasted land. Beyond that was a horizon of the Scrapyard--those fields and hills made of metal junk. Now out there, that was where there were mutants. This curly haired man then went into the building.
It was another abandoned Factory building—one of many in this border-neighborhood. Sunlight slanted through the grimed over windows. Well, that light was trying to shine through the layer of grit on the windows--barely shining into this empty place of metal machines in the big indoor space, machines that had gone silent maybe decades ago. Those windows are about as in good condition as I am, thought Jack Bent.
At least it made for some light by which he could see. He walked slowly and carefully through the gloom, slowing down in places where there was not much light at all, where he had to carefully step over some pieces of metal junk and even a few human skeletons. Who knows, maybe those rumored rats or mutants had themselves a feast? Not only was he being careful about tripping just for the sake of convenience, he was extra sure to avoid falling here because of the pain it could cause later. Trip and fall here, and maybe he could catch any number of diseases or infections. And that would not be good.
Jack Bent remembered something that happened a while back. He once tripped (not that kind of tripped) and fell--scraping his elbow on the concrete of a particularly hot city afternoon. The scrape was soon quickly infected with all kinds of pollution-strengthened germs, and then it was contaminated with the toxic substances in the grit...and in the air. By the end of the day, it made the entire arm swell--a painful fever coming with it.
He had a fever for about a week. A clinic worker said that it was a common occurrence among those who still had real human bodies--people derisively known as "fleshies." Said the clinic worker, it was actually contamination from some chemicals. And maybe, Jack Bent might not ever fully recover, said the clinic worker. But the young man did recover after an expensive day of paying for pills that seemed to make him feel as sick as the contaminating chemicals that infiltrated his bloodstream. So it was best to not do something as stupid as getting injured here, cut or scratched.
He was still stepping through the gloom. One, two, three... The man mentally counted over five machines to the left--some kind of gigantic engine-thing with pipes that went down into the floor. He reached into the dark metal recesses of the big industrial engine with vague worries of some hideous slime-skinned mutant-creature inside of the machine grabbing his wrist and chewing his arm off. Then there was the idea of some rats made poisonous by living in places where there were small puddles of toxic waste that leaked up from the ground--those rats maybe making this dark abandoned place their home. His left arm was still in the dark machine up to the elbow. Where the Hell was it?
He found it and quickly pulled. Clinkety...! It was a cloth sack filled with credits--one of his caches. Sitting with back leaning against the machine, he drop-plopped the greasy sack onto the floor and untied the top. He then reached in to get at the credit chips. A handful of credits in his left pocket would do--still plenty left over. That done, he re-tied the sack and dropped it back into the machine. Then he would quickly get right back out of here--his left arm and tee-shirt stained in places with strange green grease from the machine that stung a little. Daylight waited outside.
He would now go for a very long and distracting walk today along the main street of Tire-Wire Alley. That was what he would do--instead of what he was supposed to do. Full-flesh humans normally did not make it a habit of going for long and leisurely strolls during afternoons--as it was usually hot as Hell this time of year when the sun was way up high and glaring full down. Long ago, before Scrap Iron City, this land was desert and felt like it. Hot air, hot city streets, it was just getting so darned hot...
It was always so hot around here during this time of the year. He was feeling lazy and had a sort of loose rhythm to his walk as he went along this urban sidewalk--no shade. That hot sun burned down from high in the sky, sunlight burning through the haze of slightly beige-colored air pollution from the Factory buildings and machines all throughout nearby Scrap Iron City. No matter how long Jack Bent lived around here, he was never used to the weather of this place--weather that was both boring and maddening at the same time. It was too freakin' hot.
Nowhe was really feeling it. That sun was burning down on him--the air heating him up. Along this side of the street, the short buildings of this neighborhood were giving him no darned shade--especially since it was that time of day when sunlight shines almost straight down onto everything, onto your head and makes your life more of a Hell than it is. How the heck could other fleshies put up with this heat...every...single...day! No wonder most people decided to give up bodies in relatively good health and just become cyborgs at some point in their life, a life in a place of jumbled machine-buildings and cyborg machine-people all existing in air that was so darned polluted that it killed off most all the flying animals called "birds." He just kept walking with his two hot shoes-covered feet on the hot hardconcrete sidewalk while his head was feeling angry and heated from having to always put up with this hot...ridiculous...weather! Damn it all to Hell and death! It was no wonder why some ancient religions had a hot place called "Hell." This must be close to what it feels like! Then there was how the nights were always so cold that toes and hands went numb even if a person wore gloves. A-ach!
"It's so hot!" Hell yeah, Jack Bent was losing his freakin' mind--putting up with all of this afternoon-time hotness and humidity all mixed up with chemical-pollution from machine-buildings while metal-bodied cyborgs walked along hard concrete streets made hazy and wavy because of the hotness of the air--while everything just burned redder and hotter... Jack Bent stopped walking, tilted back his head and screa-a-amed his pain... "A-i-a-aia-i-a-a-aag-g-gh-h-h!"
A person would suppose that Jack Bent would be used to this pain. But a person can't get used to this. It was a screamed agony of...pain and suffering to the hot sky above this Hellishly hot city--a city of an industrial nightmare! He just couldn't take it any freakin' longer! And as he screamed, the metal-bodied machine people just kept walking by, the truck-machines rumbled on by along the street, the machine-buildings still steadily chuffing out air pollution up to the hot sky with the uncaring sun overhead...! His scream of agony and pain overwhelmed him. Then he blacked out for what was the third time today.
Time passed into later afternoon. Sunlight was now slanted as so some of it was blocked by the concrete buildings--casting this side of the street in shadows. He was lying on the sidewalk next to the alley. People kept walking by... That man in grimy tee shirt and greasy pants must be a drug addict or something. Drug addicts--be those drugs alcoholic, narcotic, or otherwise--were always passed out around here. Also true was how most people did not really have places to live, though most were able to find unused places to sleep--like abandoned industrial basements or room-like nooks in the sewer system so clogged that they remained dry. So what? A lot of people were homeless. The thing to do was walk by and ignore them. In Jack Bent's case, the perception of him being just another impoverished druggie kept people from digging around in his greasy pants or turning him over to get at the little sack of money he was lying on.
Except one such passer-by did not ignore the wretch on the sidewalk. It was a wild-haired visitor with huge metal machine-arms and scratched synthetic face--a visitor that drew occasional worried stares. The visitor gave a nudge with an armored boot. When the man just stirred, the visitor next nudge had the hint of a kick in it.
"Ahh!" yelled Jack Bent, suddenly sitting up. He was clutching his left shoulder where he'd been booted. Then he wriggled around as so he could sit up against the building and look around while his sleep-confused mind was still getting oriented. Then he looked up at the scratched synthetic face of the Sechs replicate. "Hey, why'd you wake me up! I was having a really good dream!" he exclaimed. "It was wonderful... There was this nice and cool-weather place with a great big field--covered with grass. You know, that plant that grows in patches in that wasteland field just outside the Scrapyard lands? Except this green grass was everywhere. But this field was surrounded with trees all together, lots and lots of trees." Nothing was said in response. He continued talking, his eyes taking on a far-off look while his voice went into a wistful lull.
"The dream... Everything was good again. The ground was so soft, and the weather was just right. It was always just a little cool--felt good. You could walk into that place with trees and feel the nice wind blow all over you. Everything even smelled good, smelled like plants--and flowers. Oh, there were flowers there too. You could also see some beautiful animals delicately walking through the place with trees or going out onto the field. I think they used to be called deer... There were little soft furry animals there too--cute animals, cuter than rats, believe it or not. Everything was just so right and so relaxing... And everything... Everything..." Jack Bent Bent his head to look down at the sidewalk, tears coming to his eyes. "Not like...this damned place. All of this damned concrete and these machine-buildings and..."
"You fool!" sneered the replicate. "Like a fool, you dreamed of a foolish place that does not exist. There are no forests of trees. There are no fields of grass. All that exists here and now are the desert-wilds and wastelands that stretch between the strong cities of concrete and machines, with good farms to provide food. Cities make the products that you use. Farms make the food you eat. And that is all.
"If you continue this foolish and weak talk of forgotten places, I shall give you pain to make you forget what is best forgotten. It shall not be enough pain to interfere with the task you must accomplish. It shall, however, be enough pain to knock some of the foolishness out of you. Awaken, you foolish dreamer!"
To that, Jack Bent shook his head as tears dripped. No, no, no... He didn't want to forget that wonderful place he saw in the dream, that place with green fields and cool forests, soft ground... It was better than here. Any place there was better than here, in this time.
Sechs then reached down with one of those big robot-machine arms, the huge hand wrapping around Jack Bent's left arm. Jack Bent was slightly muscular--a career criminal had to be athletic. But Sech's huge robot-hands made the man's arms seem thin. Sechs was also satisfied to see the man wince in pain while standing--or being lifted up to standing. "You shall stop this foolish talk. Also, you will then do what a person of Zalem has ordered you to do. Or perhaps the next orders out of Zalem shall be for a bounty put on your head."
Jack Bent's face crumpled into misery and sobbing. Sechs then let go of him--not because of mercy but because of disgust. The man then collapsed to sitting on the sidewalk and wrapped himself into a human ball with left arm clutched, sobbing like mad and rocking back-and-forth.
"You have heard what was necessary," said that replicate Sechs, staring at this sobbing and pathetic wretch. Sechs saw someone that looked to be less than worthless--a fleshie in grimy clothes with a thick smell of pollution-chemicals mixed with sweat. And the fact that the fleshie was blubbering all sorts of tears and drool out of his mouth while huddled in a pathetic ball was even worse. A pathetic and miserable wretch, that was what Sechs saw: something not even worth bothering any longer at the moment. The mighty nightmarish replicate then walked away.
2.
Perhaps an hour after those words of "encouragement" from Sechs, Jack Bent was just feeling so downtrodden and lost. He stumbled to his feet, then began to walk the streets in a daze for most of the day. He still had to find a place to get a fresh change of clothes, wash up a bit, then maybe eat something. There was no such thing as hotels around here just as there were no hospitals. He could still buy some clothes, which he did. The various people around the Motorball business--Motorball team coaches, business executives from sponsors, crazed fans--came from deeper in Scrap Iron City to be here. And wherever there were people, there would be smaller businesses to sell them what they needed...or thought they needed--restaurants. Right now, Jack Bent needed some clothes if he was going to get into a certain club.
So near the south end of Tire Wire Alley, the curly haired man in grimy clothes stepped into one of those clothing shops. His grimy, mottlesd sneakers stepped onto the nice clean carpeting. Also true was how the rest of his outfit was just as grimy and greasy in contrast to the new and clean clothes all along the circular clothing racks and on the shelves. Everything in here was just so fresh and spotless while he was all grimy and nasty... And that was why the cyborg shopkeepers looked on him with disgust--a male cyborg in stylish business suit, along with a tall elegant female in a long silk dress.
Those two looked at each other, looks of shock and disgust on their faces. What is that thing doing in our boutique?Merely the presence of something like that made them angry. The boutique owners had a vision of reality in which they were somewhat above the common people of Scrap Iron City, especially since this border-neighborhood was primarily occupied by a middle class created by the Motorball business. In their view of reality, most all the people of Scrap Iron City were little more than street-trash with jobs.
"May we help you!" sneered the male cyborg. He took quick and angry steps over here, glancing over Jack Bent's not-so-clean clothes. On his mind was this was another case of yet another bit of street-trash coming in for whatever reason.
Jack Bent knew how to talk to people like this. It first involved him reaching to his back where he had tied his little sack of cash. Out of it, he took some of those high-denomination credit-chips he had obtained earlier from a cache. "Sure thing, you can help me!" smiled Jack Bent as the male shopkeeper's eyes widened.
Oh yes...! The introduction of money into matters certainly changed things altogether. Suddenly this smelly wretch from the streets was dirty with credit chips, cash-money. That stink of chemical contamination and human dirt really had to be the smell of someone filthy rich. The boutique co-owner suddenly wanted to hug this human.
"You can help me by helping me look neat again," explained Jack Bent. Heh, and then you can help yourself by getting a new attitude. Well, he thought the second thing instead of saying it out loud.
"Of course, sir! We shall assist you presently!" enthused the male shopkeeper. He gladly took a rather sizable credit-chip from Jack Bent's slightly greasy right hand. So now the stink and disheveled look of this "street trash" was the smell and look of someone with money. Money was always welcome around here. And they were extra-willing to allow Jack Bent usage of the toilet and bathroom--those in place for human patrons--as so he could refresh himself.
Half an hour later, Jack Bent emerged from this city clothing store. And now he was clean and refreshed. His clothes were as clean as brand-new: new tee shirt, new set of slacks, looking and feeling a great deal better. But the part about being clean was the bestHe was able to wash up in the bathroom, using a new undershirt like a washcloth. And of course he had purchased clothes. The pricey tee shirt and slacks he purchased didn't feel any different from the cheaper clothes he walked in with, leaving him to wonder why stores like this could get away with charging so darned much for clothes.
Ah well... What mattered was that a place like this had short-sleeved tee shirts at all. Those darned shopkeepers wanted to dress him up in buttoned shirt and some kind of fancy business-jacket... Heck no, he wouldn't have that! Casual slacks and short-sleeved tee shirt, he had been wearing that style of outfit for centuries and was never really out of style--all the crazy styles he had seen among cyborgs and humans. And what was up with those...bunny suits?
Now he could head on over to that club. Jack Bent knew ahead of time that the girl was going to be there about six minutes from now; he could feel it. Which girl? It was the girl that was going to be at that particular club bar--the oh-so-beautiful girl with the almost elfin delicate beauty and big exotic eyes. With the girl would be her replicate bodyguard.
The girl Kyrie was the one he was also supposed to kidnap, to send her body intact up to Zalem. Normally, bodies sent up to Zalem are separated into organs and limbs. This case was supposed to be an exception. Someone up in Zalem wanted Kyrie's body.
Jack Bent's distant idea about where Kyrie was going, it turned out to be right. He followed that vague sort of idea. And now he so happened to wander into the general area of where there was a certain club. The girl was over there...
Kyrie, she was just so petite and pretty--a slender young girl with those big eyes and that long moon-silk hair. The girl was wearing shorts to go with green shirt and open jacket... She was holding hands with her female bodyguard, a bit taller and also pretty to look at. They were prettily smiling and talking to the big-armed cyborg bodyguards that flanked the entrance.
No problem, the bouncer gestured to let them in--just as Jack Bent thought they would. Somehow... He somehow knew exactly when and how Kyrie was going to get into that club, knew exactly how Kyrie was going to glance up at her bodyguard as they walked into the club while holding hands. He'd seen this all before.
And...that was when a dizzy spell hit him. He staggered a little and was nearly jostled...by a big-bellied man dressed in busiess clothes--probably another one of those businessmen associated with Motorball sponsorship or something. Something... There was something inevitable about this whole business. As for why it gave him a headache to think on it, he was unsure.
Also unsure was why he continued to follow the girl around--even though he was not going to really kidnap her. Well, he said he would kidnap the girl. He also said that it was going to take time in figuring out how to deal with the female bodyguard. The female bodyguard was a close replicate of an especially beautiful and deadly cyborg-huntress out of Zalem, especially dangerous... How could a fleshie like himself quickly deal with a replicate copied from one of the most cuttingly dangerous female cyborg ever?
Those were stupid questions, great big cover-up excuses, the frilly words he used to keep other career criminals from killing him for not living up to the contract. Jack Bent had to fulfill the terms of his contract with that client in Zalem. Contracts for black-market work from Zalem are extremely rare, and Scrap Iron City's criminal underworld much preferred to have all contracts met--even if it meant kidnapping and murdering innocent girls with big eyes and unusual pretty looks.
He found himself walking along this sidewalk in going on over to the club, late-afternoon sunlight slanting down and shadowing this city street. There was the thump-thump-thump-thump sound of club-music beats pounding out from the club itself where all the people with money and good looks were going in. Yes, dressed as he was in slacks and tee-shirt, he was going over to a club where most of the clientele dressed like Motorball millionaires and candidates for Zalem citizenship--as if there ever really were candidates for citizenship in that floating city. Some other couples were let in by the big cyborgs at the entrance...before one of those great big cyborgs looked down on him.
"Hey-hey-y-y!" shouted the big cyborg-man standing left of the open entrance--a cyborg dressed in black pants and sleeveless red shirt--big metal arms exposed. He was shouting not to be rude but because the music was so heavy with bass and loudness. And, oh my goodness, the big cyborg-man so happened to be dressed in a similar style to one that had given Jack Bent quite a thrashing way earlier today. "Where'd you buy that outfit?"
Jack Bent strained to remember the over-priced place where he bought these fresh clean clothes... The name of the place began with an L. Come on; come on... He had to remember. "I brought these duds from Lorraine's," he finally answered, trying to speak above the thumpa-thumpa-thumpa beats coming from inside the club. "I forget how much I paid for it, though!"
"Yeah, that sounds about right!" answered the bouncer. He then gestured to the entrance. It was certainly the clothes that got Jack Bent into the club. He himself may not have noticed the difference between a 5-credit and 500-credit tee-shirt, but these bouncers certainly did! And so the expensively clad criminal was allowed in, someone who began the day as a grimy wretch.