Righteous Anarchy
Chapter 1: Arson
Mismatched eyes fluttered open, only to snap shut as the blinding light sent sharp waves of pain through the already aching head. Hands clutched shaggy hair, the left half natural
brown and right dyed blonde, as the battered figure on the cold floor curled into a ball, trying to force the acidic burning from its eyes.
You only have yourself to blame for being here...
Shut up, I know that...
Alex Rivers gradually opened his eyes, letting them adjust to the yellow glow of the bare hanging bulb that was suspended just outside the cell door. The eyes peered about, the
left a deep and soulful brown while the right was a light and chilling blue. His head throbbed and his vision seemed hazier than usual. Alex knew he didn't have perfect vision, but
the optometrist had said he didn't need glasses either. His body ached with bruises from his arrest earlier that night. Apparently, the term Police Brutality had been lost along with
the rest of the world.
Alex groaned as pulled himself into a sitting position, using the wall to prop himself up. The world had gone to hell in a hand basket six months ago. The major pharmaceutical
company, Umbrella, had been exposed by some hot shot former super cops as a manufacturer of bio organic weapons, or BOWs, and various viruses that had ravaged several
small towns. STARS, that was who the super cops were; the elite of SWAT or something like that. Instead of just rolling over, Umbrella took over. Apparently, they had strong
political ties to just about every major world government and enough of their BOWs and viruses that the world became their hostage. So far, most of the governments had
collapsed, the United States well on its way to being one of them, and now everyone was on Umbrella's payroll. You agree with them or die, that simple. Alex didn't care one way
or the other, not really liking the idea of authority, which had gotten him here in the first place.
Where exactly was here? He looked around, recognizing it as one of the temporary holding cells in the back rooms of the New York Police Department. No bed, no sink, no toilet,
not even a chair. Four walls surrounding a four by six foot floor, three of concrete and one of steel bars. Everything was gray, dull, void of any manner of life. There was barely
enough room for the man's five foot ten frame to stretch out on the floor, if he wanted to.
He was the only one here, the other inmates having been shipped out to whatever hell they were scheduled for. Prison was for the lucky ones. If you really pissed someone off,
you would find yourself on a lab table in one of Umbrella's research facilities. Why hadn't anyone resisted the takeover? Well, they did, but they are either dead or hiding right
now. Alex sighed. This had all happened in six months. He held a hand to his head, finding a large lump on the back of his skull but no blood or bone fragments so chances were
he only had a small concussion. He struggled to remember the night's events, snippets of memories playing like a projector on the fritz, the scenes coming in no particular order.
Sirens and flashing lights.
Sounds of someone pounding meat.
Pitiful moans for help.
Yelling.
Warmth of blood on his chest.
His boss at the store.
Red hands.
Fire, its glowing heat comforting...
He remembered it all now. Alex had been closing up the store around eleven thirty...
The metal shutter clattered and screeched as the young man of twenty-seven pulled it down over the front of the small, New York City convenience store where he had worked for
the past nine years. Mr. Loch was probably upstairs snorting his nightly lines of cocaine with the hooker he had come in with two hours ago, leaving it up to Alex to, as usual, close
the store. He practically ran the place; his boss' addiction became more and more prominent as the weeks went by. The young man sat down behind the scratched and cracked
glass counter on the thinly padded stool, fumbling for his keys to the register. There were dull thumps coming from the apartment upstairs that he shared with Loch, since it was
all he could afford, as the supervisor and his 'company' played in the euphoria of the narcotics. Alex had learned to block it out years ago and resumed fighting with the register's
lock. It finally granted the key entrance and, after a muttered explicative or two and some jiggling of the key, it opened. Business had been halfway decent today, the small
establishment pulling in a full two hundred fifty-seven dollars and forty-one cents. The best day they'd had in several months. Alex recorded two hundred seven dollars and fortyone
cents in the ledger beside the register before pocketing three tens and a twenty. He always skimmed some off the top since his coke addict of a boss always squandered both
their paychecks on blow and never stopped to think about food. He closed the small book and put it and the money in the small safe behind the oversized toilet paper display near
the beer.
Hmm. Don't mind if I do.
He popped the cap off a randomly selected bottle and took a long pull. Oh the joys of working in a convenience store. Alex jumped and sputtered, spilling his pilfered drink on his
clean shirt, as something upstairs crashed. Yelling filtered down, mostly indiscernible gibberish, but the tone was definably angry. He set the long neck down and quietly made his
way up the back stairs in the storage room to the cramped apartment. His hand hovered over the discolored brass doorknob for a moment, debating whether or not he should
enter. Alex had always tried to avoid confrontation, never having been a strong fighter. Studying chemistry and dodging blows from bullies, at school and home, didn't tend to
leave much time for physical training. The woman's scream of pain and terror from behind the paper-thin door decided for him. There was a prominent crack, like the dry snap of
a chicken bone, followed by a bump and she stopped screaming. Alex threw the door open and was met by the sight of the grossly overweight Julius Loch, wearing only boxer
shorts and standing over a broken and bleeding woman. She wasn't moving; her own blood splattered across her face and exposed breasts. Apparently they had been in the
process of redressing when the altercation began because she wore a half zipped skirt at her waist that covered her other regions. Something snapped inside Alex, a buried
memory coming to life as a fiery rage as he saw the handiwork of his boss. Loch was breathing heavily, the white powder around his flaring nostrils mingling with the mucus that
encrusted on his handlebar moustache, making it look as greasy as his unwashed mop of hair on his head. Alex took two steps and swung his fist with all his strength before the
drugged man could react. Pain shot up his forearm as the appendage connected solidly with Loch's temple. The fat man crumpled like a sack of flour to the dull yellow linoleum
that comprised the majority of the floor. Alex fell on him, and pounded bruised fists into Julius' face against and again, screaming at the man that hadn't moved since the initial
strike. When it was over, when the adrenaline had subsided and vision returned to the enraged man, reality hit him like a train. Loch's face was caved in and shattered, each
feature undistinguishable from the next in the pile of ground meet that met his terrified gaze. Alex scrambled off the swollen gut in horror as his stomach lurched and churned.
Vomit exploded from his mouth and splattered on the already stained couch, not making much difference in the color. He stayed on his hands and knees, coughing up the meager
contents of his stomach. His whole body shook and he felt weak and helpless, frozen to the spot with fear of what he had done.
You killed him...
I didn't mean to...
Of course you did...
I was just trying to help the girl...
He deserved it...
No one deserves to die...
Quit whining and help her...
Alex shook the voice from his head, not so confident he had won the argument, and crawled over to the woman. He could tell from the slight rise and fall of her chest that she was
breathing, but she wasn't moving other than that. Her hair matched the color of the bruises on her arms and her nose seemed to have been obliterated, blood flowing out at a
steady stream. Was it safe to move her? He didn't know, medicine not exactly being his field of expertise. Quivering fingers struggled to hold the phone in place at his ear as he
dialed 911, the number he had used to many times before.
"Please help me," He whispered into the receiver, as if Loch were still alive and listening. "My boss beat this woman and now she isn't moving and I don't know what to do." His
voice quivered as he babbled, his sentences not having any structure other than that of rising panic. He wasn't that worried about the woman; she was just some cocaine
addicted, hourly whore. There were hundreds more like her in the grand city of New York. His real panic was born from fear of the authorities finding out he killed Julius. He gave
the address and rattled the pale green phone into its cradle under assurances that an ambulance would be there shortly. The silence hung in the air like some ghost, impishly
threatening to tell all of Alex's secrets when the paramedics came. Gazing down, the crimson covered hands attached to his arms stared back up at him, threatening to reveal him.
They whispered to his psyche...
We're gonna tell...
He ran to the bathroom, thrusting his hands under the cold, yellow tinged water, trying to scrub the blood from his flesh.
We're gonna tell...
The blood refused to come off his knuckles. The more he scrubbed, the more wet red would appear on his skin.
We're gonna tell...
Alex stopped, the cold water stinging his lesioned hands as he held them beneath the crusty faucet. The blood was his own. From scraping so hard at his skin, the dermis had
broken in several small places. He breathed in relief, but only for a moment as the sounds of wailing sirens reached his ears.
They're going to find Loch!
He scampered out of the bathroom and back into the main room. She probably shouldn't be moved, but he couldn't let those people find the body of his former employer. There
weren't trials and courts with nice, long, fifteen-year waits on death row. He would be shipped out that night to a research facility so those Umbrella psychos could experiment on
him. Avoiding that was worth the life of one doped up street tramp. Alex pulled her into his arms and stuttered down the stairs, nearly dropping her several times in his haste. Her
head clipped the doorframe as he exited out of the ally side door, headed for the street. He made it to the sidewalk just as the 'ambulance' showed up. The usual red cross had
been replaced by the topside view of a red and white umbrella. Everyone knew that the hospitals were controlled and supplied by Umbrella who chose to smear its logo feces over
everything medical. The paramedics jumped out of the back with a gurney while the passenger took the girl from Alex's arms. No one said anything to him, or even looked at him
as they strapped her to the dull white gurney and loaded her into the back. Without a word between them, the ambulance was off and speeding for the hospital.
Alex stood, staring dumbly at the road the ambulance disappeared down. Slowly he turned and was confronted by the metal shutters that hid the store he hated. Upstairs was the
body of a man who he had hated. A shudder passed through him of disgust at himself for even trying to rationalize it. Slowly, he made his was back into the store and upstairs
where he collapsed in a under stuffed armchair. He had done something terribly wrong, and he had to go all the way with it or he would be caught.
There was one thing that could hide anything, Alex knew. Fire. Alex had learned, through research and occasional experimentation, how to create various explosives through his
love of chemistry. Once he arrived in New York nine years ago, he had joined an anarchist group who shared his views on the government called Absolute Freedom. He supplied
explosives for their exploits of terrorism for a generous sum of money until they were caught last year. Few people were ever harmed, as their goal was to cause chaos, not to fill
morgues. Now, Alex was the only member of AF left in the city. The others had either been arrested or fled to New Jersey.
He went to his room and grabbed his duffle bag. Various chemicals and packets of powder, all packed in stabilized containers to keep them from mixing or rupturing went into the
duffle. He was going to make sure there was no evidence. The whole building was going to be destroyed. A denim jacket slid onto his arms and shoulders to ward off the October
chill when he left. The bag was set down in the room next to the body. Since incinerating it was his main goal, he thought that it was the logical place to put the bag. Chances
were, if Alex ever needed to make bombs again, which was doubtful, he knew where to find supplies and he had enough money hidden in the old AF hideout that he didn't need to
worry too much about it. The arsonist took a length of slow fuse from the duffle and a strike-anywhere match. The white head seemed to beg, calling out to him.
Light me...
Let me make it all disappear...
Just one stroke and it will all be over...
Alex obeyed. The fuse was burning and Alex was outside in minutes. The fuse was long enough that he didn't have to run, but a brisk walk should get him far enough away to not
get hit by any debris. The streets were always deserted this time of night, people not wanting to risk being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Alex froze as a black and white
police car rounded the corner in front of him.
Oh sh-
The explosion illuminated the car all the more clearly, and more importantly, the startled faces of the officer and his partner in the front seat. Had Alex been experienced at doing
the actual bombings and not just making them, he would have acted as if it surprised him as much as the officers then told an elaborate lie to get out of trouble. But he didn't
have experience bombing buildings so all he did was stand, rooted to the spot by fear, and stare at the cops. When they got out of the car, his brain ceased thinking and he did the
worst possible thing. Alex ran.
The arsonist sat in his cell, wincing at the memory. They had caught him before he made it ten paces and claimed he was resisting arrest. That was their excuse, anyway, for
raining blow after blow with their nightsticks on his curled up body. No one responded to his cries of pain, just like they hadn't responded when the kids at school teased him about
having two different eyes. Just like no one listened when his father beat him in a drunken rage. After unconsciousness had graced Alex with its presence, he awoke here in the cell
with nothing but a headache and charges of arson and resisting arrest. This just wasn't his night.
What Alex didn't realize, however, was that the lady of the night he had rescued, had suffered a bite on her thigh by a particularly rough client that smelled like he had died and
didn't know it. She couldn't have been more right. He was still unconscious in his cell when she awoke in the hospital. The doctors had been trying to inject her with something
with a purple bluish tint to it. Realizing where she was, she thrashed and in the resulting pandemonium, a green vial fell into her purse. They finally got the T-virus antidote into
her and did what little they could for her nose. The staff gathered some clothes together for her and sent her on her way. About the time Alex awoke, she tripped on the curb and
landed on the purse, hearing the crunch of glass through the haze of pain relievers.