Author comments: This story is a collaboration between the authors WookieFragger and Ravyn Starkweather. It is also a crossover between Max Payne and Twisted Metal: Black. This first chapter is by WookieFragger, and the second chapter will be by Ravyn Starkweather. The two writers will be going back and forth, taking turns submitting chapters one after the other. Let the darkness begin...
WookieFragger
Max,Ch1
You climb to the top of Mount Everest and look down, and the view is so foggy you can't see where you came from, and you're cold as hell, nothing to look forward to but a long, painful climb back down. That's kind of how I felt as I stood there on top of the Aesir building staring down into the streets at the smoking remains of a chopper. The dead occupant was a woman who earned all the hatred I had in my heart when she sold the lives of my wife and daughter for drug money. I leaned over the edge of the roof and spat at the wreckage. A few red drops shrank out of sight and hit the metal with a clink. It was bitterly cold. I was holding the side of a sniper rifle up against my stomach. It was still a little warm.
Spotlights were all focused on me. Police copters making damn sure I didn't move, news copters making damn sure they get a good view if I do. I felt like a movie star, some kind of action anti-hero. An automatic door hissed as it opened behind me, and then there were the sounds of dozens of footsteps crackling on the glass shards that were part of the door only a few short minutes ago. One of the men shouted at me to drop my weapon. I did. After that, I just let it all happen. The SWATs cuffed me and led me at gunpoint back down the maze I had fought with all my heart and the small shred of soul I still had to climb up. Corpses were everywhere. The guy behind me was breathing hard. They'd probably seen crack house busts go bloody, but this was a new level for them. We walked out of a stairwell and onto the floor where Mona was shot in the elevator. One man was slumped over a bench, two were on the floor, and from up there you could see even more on the ground floor in the foyer, which was once beautiful marble. Now it was a mess of cracks craters. Bodies were hung over on railings on other floors above, and one had fallen a couple stories into the foyer, twisted horribly on top of a crushed wooden bench. The guy who had been behind me hunched over and threw up. He looked up to one of his buddies and moaned, "Ah shit". His buddy patted him on the shoulder. "Yeah, I know." He gave me a quick, nervous glance. I had killed a couple hundred people in the last couple of weeks, and by the next morning I'd be a free man.
The old man bought me beer, and while I'd never been much for it, it seemed somehow appropriate. You take down an army all by yourself, you deserve a beer at least. I had had more than a couple, and I got a little envious of the old man because he would never see double. He wasn't in the super fancy suit anymore, but a button down white shirt and khaki pants. The official shit was over, and even the highly empowered enjoy going out and just being regular people. The only thing that made him really stand out from the other night-sceners was the eye patch. I had gotten over the novelty of working for a Cyclops yesterday, but once I had gotten a little buzzed, I couldn't help but stare. He chuckled good-naturedly, and decided to tell me the story behind it. "Nicole had been after me for years, and she thought she had me one time." His grin slowly faded into a dead, stony frown. "She bombed an airplane flying out of Dulles. Went off about halfway across the Atlantic, and I alone survived. A piece of plastic found its way back behind the socket, and my eye went numb. The doctors probably could have saved it, but I was floating on a life raft for about a week and a half, and I was starving." I looked down at my glass, and was suddenly very grateful I saw two reflections.
There were two other things that I saw. One was that old man Alfred Woden was hiding something; the other was that I had it on tape. The silence was beginning to get a little awkward, so he took a big chug of his beer. I was sober enough to figure that something was on that tape that would be important to more people than just his wife. I seriously doubted that a sex tape was what Nicole Horne had him by the small hairs with. I also wondered if he knew I had it. His face grew grave, his eyebrow pressing down over his patch and said, "Max, we're going to move you somewhere else. Anywhere in the country you'd like. I'd strongly advise against you staying in New York. You slaughtered the Punchinello's, which means their relatives are furious. If you stay, you're putting yourself in all kinds of danger. I don't want you to get hurt." I nodded. He bought me more beer; we joked around, and had a lot of fun. There was a macabre aftertaste from the day before lingering in the back of my mind, and I'm sure the beer wasn't the smartest thing for a man who had as many holes in him as I did, but I needed to have a good time, and I did, and holy damn did I get plastered.
The orange and white U-haul truck sagged on its wheels as more and more boxes were stacked in, and I could feel the shocks creaking a little bit every time one of Woden's men rolled a full hand truck up the ramp as I sat there on top of the square frame, picking up my feet every time they had to get in or out. They didn't seem to mind too much. The way I see it, if I were helping a mass murderer pack up, and he wanted to sit on top of the truck, I'd have no problem with that. It's like the old joke. Where does a 500 pound gorilla sit?
The sun was finally showing itself, and I was grateful for the meager warmth it provided, cutting through the thin fog like a stick in a cobweb. It woke up some hot spots on my shoulder blade that were left over from Angelo Punchinello's restaurant. They were now dark red and were peeling like crazy. I thought about what Woden had told me yesterday, about his eye. He might be missing an eye, but I'd wager that there aren't too many things that could escape his watch. I was pretty sure that he'd be keeping his eye on me from now on. Still, I was at least convinced that he wasn't one of the bad guys, though I wouldn't exactly say he was one of the good guys either. Whatever. The movers were ready. Max relaxed into his car, turned the ignition, and drove. The U-Haul followed.