4:30 — ? —?
(Ress less — Superfluid)
Soft neon light filled the streets, dug into every nook and cranny, and still left huge, ominous shadows. The calm blue-purple color and morning gloom made it look like an ordinary part of town, just a little dirtier, but it was only an illusion. Everyone here knew that such light was no good. How many killers hid in the uneven blue light, how many bodies went unnoticed in the shadows? Such lighting suited the outskirts of the glorious city of Lungman, a place that combined shining glass skyscrapers with the grim concrete boxes that peppered its slums.
More recently, neon lights have begun to illuminate all of Lungman, even the slums of the poor. This was intended to save money and develop the city. The savings were very successful, but the glorious city never saw the money saved: maybe it had long since been spent on the needs of the LGD (?), though it was more likely to have gone into someone else's pocket. One way or another, the level of poverty remained at the same level. And with it, the level of violence.
Today the rain sucked the rest of the heat from the city's streets, made the already dark buildings even darker, and forced all its residents to seek shelter from the weather. What would seem to be wrong with rain doing the work of absent janitors?
Strange as it may seem, the rain not only brought cleanliness, but also crippled: you could slip and fall into the black swamp that gutters become in bad weather, you could freeze to death, you could simply fall ill and die in the absence of funds for treatment. Although for someone the rain, with its steady thudding, calmed his nerves and gave a sense of tranquility.
Despite the downpour, the street was not empty. The only one who was not afraid to go out in the rain was a man in a black cape and thick clothes. The clothes were unremarkable: gray jeans, a black sports jacket with white stripes, a sweater, and the usual athletic sneakers, not particularly suited to the weather, and most likely worn in a hurry. The man in the raincoat made clear that there was no need to know who he was and why he was there.
The cloaked figure walked from the edge of the street, occasionally glancing around in an attempt to spot a threat. No one would stick their head out now, or point a gun at the figure, but ingrained habits made one perpetually look for barrels and blades in the shadows. Such caution was understandable from a glance at the yellow patch with a slant cross on his jacket.
The man stopped in front of an common two-story building. Black gaps in the windows, illuminated by a dim neon sign that read "Lungmen Medicine," stared menacingly at the man, sucking him into the blackness. The creaking doors could barely be heard as the downpour poured mercilessly. The concrete had crumbled in some places, and in the end, the cloaked man was looking at the pitiful sight of a promising clinic for the infected, closed and abandoned in yet another fit of social hysteria.
A machine gun emerged with a rustling sound from beneath his clothes. The magazine detached, the man checked it for readiness. With the same rustle the magazine returned to its place. The man looked at the bolt, lingering slightly on it, and jerked it open. Suddenly there was a clang, audible even through the noise of the rain. The man thought it was the weapon that let out a battle cry rather than the bolt being badly greased. Be that as it may, the machine gun was ready to carry death.
The man suddenly felt uncomfortable. More than once he had cleaned up such dens, leaving no stone unturned. The higher-ups said, "It's for the needs of the Reunion and the common infected. By taking the lives of the inhabitants of these dumps, you will give it to those who really deserve it: our fellow sufferers. But he never understood who or why would want the filthy and cold abandonment, except beggars who simply had nowhere else to go.
A feeling of foreboding came over him. A foreboding of something sinister, preparing to burst into this building, into these streets, and sweep away everything in its path. But an order is an order, and a commander doesn't give a damn about your premonitions and fears. It will be carried out, period. An outside observer would have noticed the unnatural gray color of the man's face. It was as if death was imprinted on him.
Shaking himself off, the man decided to finish the last preparations. "Machine gun ready, knife ready, change magazines ready...," he thought to himself, patting his pockets. At last the preparations were finished. The man approached the large doors at the entrance of the building. His trained eye immediately noted the position from which the doors could most effectively be kicked open.
"Ready for battle. Time to begin."
(Perturbator — Technoir)
The door rattled off its hinges. Some poor bastard wagged his tail amusedly and flew to the floor, stunned by the door. He fired a quick burst at the other two men in the room, knocking them to the walls. He turned his gaze to the fallen man, lying in a pool of blood. A shot was fired, and the unfortunate man froze. The gunman began a sweep.
Farther down the corridor stood two guys with bats, or something like that — the shooter did not see — another shot, again two corpses adorned the gray wall in red. The blood mingled with the fur of the beast's ears, creating an unsavory mess. The man checked the ammunition: a third of the rounds were gone. The machine didn't need a lot of ammunition to carry death, so the man didn't pay much attention to it.
The next room was bigger than the others: apparently, it used to be a hallway. In the corner stood one wolf kid with a cleaver, another was looking for something behind the counter, and a third was bored in the center. The shooter spotted the third: he wasn't much inferior to a good closet, and a bullhorn gave him an even greater resemblance. The first bullet went to the bull guy. Everyone jumped up, someone yelled, "What the fuck", but his shout was quickly drowned out by the machine-gun rumble. When the rumbling stopped, the men with the animal features lay breathless. The assasin looked at the clothes of the dead: simple rags, tattered sweatpants. The rags did not arouse pity in the murderer; on the contrary, they only encouraged him more.
A fog enveloped the whole building, but the man noticed it only now. It did not interfere particularly with the case, it was not dense enough, and the man had no time to admire it. The assassin entered directly into the fog, wreaking death and destruction.
The events that followed merged into one stream: kick in the door, look around the room, give a line, finish off the fallen, repeat. Sometimes the killer would knock down another victim with the door, then he could break his neck or smash his head. Sometimes the opponents managed to react and rushed toward him in an attempt to hit him with pipes and cleavers. The end was the same: another body with a bullet in its leg or head, "the man had no complaints about marksmanship", pouring fresh blood on the walls.
Cold iron could never match the fire-spitting death machine. That's what distinguished the jerks from the gunslingers, proud and deadly.
On the fourth room, the killer heard the click of an empty machine gun. He tried to conserve ammunition — a cold anger toward the big-eared and tailed garbage got in his way. Reloading, the empty magazine flew to the floor, the shooter continued on his way.
Gradually the first floor turned into a burial ground. It took the shooter a magazine and a half to do so. He thought he'd be getting a "floor cleared" message now, if he were in an old-fashioned video game. The strangler was about to take the stairs he had just found, but a gust of wind from the street knocked the hood off him, then to expose the bright yellow glow of his halo. The man thought for a moment, and put the hood back on. Why scare away his victims?
The second floor greeted him with angry cries, the rain failing to drown out the gunshots and screams. Angel raised his rifle: there was another rumble. Another scavenger with white wolf ears turned out to be fidgety, the line went past him. But it did not help him: the angel had already shortened the distance with the knife in his hand. With a flick, the wolf-catcher held on to his open throat. The assassin simply shoved him, and he settled back down.
Two more guys showed up at the door with bats, but they were as the palm of their hand. The shooter didn't even have to aim, his reflexes did the job. The unfortunates flew back with their skulls crushed.
The doorway opened a view of a large room with lots of possible hiding places. The angel took advantage of that — the rusty bed tipped over on its side.. The angel's instincts were right. A shot rang out, a stray bullet whizzed by the killer's right. He only waited for the click, fired blindly, then went into a frontal attack himself.
He saw two men: one junkie with a gun, the other with a knife. He snagged a couple of men with his machine gun, but these two somehow survived. The assassin flew up to his neighbor and poked his eye out with a swing of his knife. Screams erupted again, and the wounded man fell to the floor. He was finished, to be dealt later. The farther one tried to cock his gun, but the throw of the knife stopped him from doing so. The blade struck the center of his arm, tearing bone and muscle with a juicy crunch.
The guy with the gun tumbled on his side, falling against the wall. A fluffy tail cushioned his fall. Anyone could hear the painful screams, but the angel didn't blink. He only grabbed the man who had lost his eye by the head and smashed his face into the floor with a few strokes. The floor was adorned with a pink mess of the unfortunate man's brains.
Suddenly something burned the man just above the waist. He looked over there. As expected, he saw crimson stain. With a slight effort the angel ignored the stinging pain and rushed to the wounded man's arm. He was leaning against the wall. In his healthy hand, the angel noticed a pistol. In an instant it slipped from his hand, greasy and bloody. A thump on the floor, and the doomed man's tail wagged as his eyes peeked out. The assassin broke his Adam's apple with a single blow.
The sweep continued. Next room, three corpses. The new hall, four of them: all were able to react, but only one managed to do anything. If by that you mean "spread out a meter and a half closer to the killer than the others".
With each new dead body, doubt gnawed at the angel more and more. Something wasn't right.
He took a moment to stop. Wounded? He was finishing off the wounded. Every one to the death, he made sure of that. The mission? "Sweeping the building of undesirables" meant just that. Ammo? It had finally dawned on him: a killing machine, an experienced assassin in the Rebels had forgotten an extra magazine!
His hand slipped into his unload. The hunch was right. An extra magazine couldn't be extra, only civilians said so. The man, however, knew the value of ammunition, not without reason one or two cartridges went for each garbage. "It's not fatal in these conditions. But it's a shame." And yet that magazine hung reproachfully in his head, distracting him from the really important things. Such as another big horned man nearly driving his big fist into assasin's face.
The rain didn't stop. It only washed the red streaks away more diligently wherever there were windows nearby. It didn't care about the slaughterhouse, or the angel, or the machine-gun rumble. All are equal before the vagaries of nature. Those caught in the rain could only put up with it, and accept its cold indifference.
But he had his work cut out for him: the angel with the cross knew his job. A river of blood ran out of one window. There the angel again opened someone's throat with a knife. While he was doing this, a junkie with something sharp caught him, and poked him in the back. Angel wrenched the knife away in one fell swoop and backhanded him. Another scream was drowned in the noise of the rain. The ragged assassin cupped the lucky bastard's face, and did so by throwing the junkie right on top of the shards of glass. Afterwards he took the shiv out of his back.
There wasn't much left. The last room, to be exact. The last garbage, to be even more accurate. The door flew off its hinges, blown away by a mighty blow. The victim met the murderer, looking out the window. Apparently this one was preoccupied with philosophy. Or a drug trip, more likely. Philosophy or parish was interrupted by a gunshot. The click of a gun voracious to the point of ammunition coincided with the thud of a falling body. The last person to enjoy the rain was shot.
(MASKED — Crying blood)
At last the gunman threw back his hood. The cape flew onto the concrete floor. If a passerby had looked at him, he would have run away in terror. Frayed jacket, frayed jeans, frayed appearance.
The last corpse, if he had had a chance to look at his killer, noted his resemblance to the building. He would probably be closer than he thought.
The light of the nimbus dispersed the semi-darkness. In the morning fog, it gave the atmosphere only more of a chill. Its wearer fought desperately against the urge to settle down. The pain dulled, but it did not ease. Suddenly it seemed to him that this was where his journey would end, in a hole, as dogs like him were supposed to do.
Chasing the thought away, Angel took out his walkie-talkie and turned it on. It hissed for a minute, but finally came to life with an indistinct noise. It turned into words:
"Workshop on, over."
"The artist can hear you, over."
"Requesting exhibition report."
"The artist roger. The exhibition was wonderful, the audience was delighted."
"No one stayed longer than permitted?"
"No, they didn't."
"Good, the sponsor will be pleased. The artist may close the exhibition, over."
"Roger, I'm closing. I'll be ready to work on my masterpiece in an hour and a half, over."
"The studio understands you, prepare tea and paints, over."
"The artist will... Wait, what the..."
The shooter with the walkie-talkie turned toward the entrance, and pointed the barrel of his cannon there. He saw a short crossbow aimed in his direction. Instinctively, the angel realized that his head was in the trajectory of the shot. "The underbelly? But I...," he didn't have time to finish the thought.
The machine gun emitted the whining click of an empty magazine instead of a rattle. The sound of the crossbow cocking, on the other hand, seemed to Angel a dense, rich sound, a harbinger of doom for the enemy. The gear came into motion, and the crossbow spat out a thin arrow.
The angel regretted his unworthy warrior's restlessness before the bolt whistled through the arrow's eye. Sancta, who disrespects his trusty cannon, has paid for it with his life, and this one was no exception.
The arrow pierced through his head. The "Artist" just flew back on inertia and collapsed. The nimbus faded and shattered, and streams of red liquid flowed from the pierced head, creating a bloody picture.
The man who emerged from the opening apparently didn't appreciate his creativity. He was clearly different from the punk who had died earlier, if only by the fact that he was alive. The second difference was his clothes. An expensive coat a with the sleeves torn at the ends, contrasted starkly with the dirty winding that had become the local residents' sweatpants, and similar to the "Artist" jeans, his pants had a real shoulder pistol with a holster. He was obviously prepared for a fight, and was probably going to give himself a bloodbath.
The man in the fur coat wasted no time, and ran up to the body cooling in the cold fog. The radio was wheezing, and in that wheezing you could make out someone's low-key swearing. The man picked up the radio, and put it to his ear.
"Artist? Artist?! Mikhail, fucking answer it! Mikhail!"
"Hmm, shitty exhibition he's got, to be honest. I think I could do just as well."
"Who's that?"
"A disgruntled critic. By the way, I'm aware of your location. I'll be back in an hour and a half. Put the tea on when I arrive. I'll have some, "the man hesitated", with four spoonfuls of sugar. I like it sweeter."
"Fuck... Attention all base: we have…"
The walkie went silent, though he understood everything without too much explanation. The man in the fur coat leisurely searched the dead angel, took the knife, the supplies, and the cloak from the dead man, and walked downstairs. There was no hurry; an hour and a half was a lie to scare that end of the wire.
The downpour had no intention of ending. It seemed to want to dissolve the building the way a painting dissolves when exposed to acid. But the only living person in it didn't care about nature's fury. He stepped out of the pale fog that enveloped the building, pulled on the cloak he had taken, and staggered across the wet asphalt. For a while he could be seen from the windows of the bloodstained house, but soon the man in the fur coat vanished into the darkness of the morning.
It was definitely a good day. Beautiful weather, a great opportunity not to get our hands dirty, and a wonderful catch. And in the afternoon, a wonderful opportunity to spend the evening. They both have a lot of work to do. The rain, and the killer in the fur coat.
It was getting light. The morning sun was rising from behind a skyscraper-hidden skyline. It dispelled the gloom, awakened the life of the city. The rays of sunlight gleamed in the raindrops, in the puddles, in the glass. They conjured up an extraordinary picture of a shining Lungman, unaware of the morning's massacre. Cold neon gave way to warm sunlight.
