Weary Traveler

Infinite ripples in a puddle of muddy puke reflected Mitch Henderson’s pockmarked face.

His barbed, bushy brows floated above bloodshot eyes that cracked like fiery jawbreakers, squeezed cold tears down his sunken cheeks.

Aches writhed in his shrunken stomach, devouring itself. Consciousness straddling the edge of ecstasy and overdose after a timeless, bonzo bender wracked against his dizzy brain, pelting a perpetual vibration through the sky like an angry gong.

One final dry heave lurched through his starved body. And then, he stumbled onto his wobbly legs. His oversized, faded, black coat hung from his skeletal torso, flapped in the icy gusts slicing through the downpour. He tilted his balding head back and let his lifeless eyes survey the gloomy sky.

A lightning storm raged within the gray cage of permanent pollution hovering overhead, trapping the smart city of Rosenfell and its decrepit skyscrapers and lonely inhabitants beneath a thundercloud of eternal night like an electrified, titanium dome swallowed the Earth.

Every corpo, nomad, and bum, imprisoned by that wicked tech-grid, connecting things to things, this to that. Invisible tethers tying individual consciousness into a hive mind of conventional uniformity. Mindless drones stumbling about without an original thought. Reaching at emptiness, clawing their augmented brains, pulling masks over their modified faces to hide from the truth of their enslavement.

Mitch coughed, smacked his chest, then hocked a loogie from deep within his fiery chest, spit out the lingering taste of booze and bonzos from his gums after their quick journey down into his rotten stomach, hurled back onto one of downtown’s depressing alleys, fertilizing the dead soil for lonely bums to trample over.

He blinked, squeezed the last remnants of tears from his eyes, and gazed at the technological jungle of stone and steel rising out of the dirty ground like synthetic trees. They climbed high into the air and disappeared above the clouds of toxic smog and somber smoke.

“Out of my way, bum!” screamed a nomad straight into Mitch’s ear, knocking him forward with the full force of a lowered shoulder. The lanky freak stomped and splashed through the mud and vomit, soaking the bottoms of his skin-tight, synthetic alligator pants with slimy coats of chunky brown sludge and green goop that dribbled down his glossy, chrome tech-boots illuminated by a dazzling glow.

Mitch’s scaly lips crept upwards into a grimy grin. A slight chuckle dropped from his mouth like a dead weight, sound warped by the bonzo’s mind-bending, vertigo effects still coursing through his veins. His body seized by a jolt of buzzing euphoria, pleased with the instant karma conjured up from his gut, energized with electric tingles that crawled across his clammy skin.

The nomad marched halfway down the alley and then stopped beneath a flickering yellow lantern dangling from a rusted street post. Swiveling security cameras covered every inch of the top half of the pole, while bundles of barbed wire and serrated spikes crisscrossed the bottom. Pounded into the brick wall above a blackened, steel door, were two mini turrets and a primitive, makeshift flamethrower encased in a protective fiberglass shell.

The man looked left, into the dark depths of the alley, then swung his head right, glanced in Mitch’s direction, before turning back towards the door. He balled up his right hand and pounded against the door with the side of his fist. Five thumps echoed up and down the alley like suppressed rifle blasts.

He took a step back, bounced on the balls of his feet, looked left again, then right, when a burst of beaming luminescence exploded from behind the steel door. It collided against the nomad and pushed him backwards with his arms blocking his face as if the light were built from a physical force. He backpedaled, tripped over his feet and toppled into the mud.

A ferocious tremor of steps rumbled through the ground, followed by a behemoth man-giant who stormed out from behind the floodlight with a sawed off shotgun aimed down upon the nomad’s head.

“Oh, shit,” Mitch said, ducking behind an overflowing dumpster on the alley’s left wall. Synthetic flies buzzed an electric hum, spreading sonic waves through the musty air. He wrapped his long fingernails over the corroded lip and peeked down the alley. The nomad cowered at the giant towering over him, pleaded with him using some frantic, incoherent ramble as the aggressor drove the muzzle of the shotgun deeper into his chest. A strip of neon red traced the side of the gun from the incinerator rounds packed inside.

Mitch pushed away from the foul stench of the dumpster and stepped into the middle of the alley, cupping his hands around his mouth.

“Next time don’t shove a bum, pussy!”

The giant and the nomad both turned, glared with narrow eyes at their heckler.

“Fuck you, bum!” they screamed in tandem.

“Keep talking and you’re next,” the man-giant shouted.

“Oooh,” Mitch said, wriggling his open palms, “big bad ogre thinks he’s tough with a shotgun. Fuck you!”

The giant turned, gripped the shotgun with his right hand like it was constructed from cardboard, and pointed the muzzle at Mitch.

“What did you just say, bum?”

“Fuck you, pussy!” Mitch screamed, throwing up two, dirt-crusted middle fingers. He blinked from the shockwave that rippled towards him, opened his eyes in an instant, and followed the blazing incinerator shells scatter over his head like a grumpy dragon’s spit.

“Next one won’t miss,” the giant said, walking Mitch down. “One less infected bum on my streets.”

“That’s what every loser who can’t aim says. You suck!”

“That’s it,” the giant shouted, charging forward.

“Whoops,” Mitch muttered, scooping up his mangled backpack from the muck.

He turned on his heels, leaned forward, and forced his weak legs into a slow sprint with a lazy limp. His grimy fists held up his camouflage cargo pants. Decayed yellow, mud-painted, toenails poked through holes in his tattered sneakers as they splashed back through the mud and barf, out of the alley’s entrance, disappearing into the bustling chaos of Twilight District.

The neon streets were boisterous with the humming chatter of nomads marching across the vast quadrant, streaming into and out of abandoned buildings and rundown tech-shops. Some hustled up flights of stairs of corpo skyscrapers and Rezi-Rizes that vanished beyond the oppressive sky like smoke from an everlasting, atmospheric inferno; others idled in suspicious packs and gobbled up boxes of synthetic gruel from rickety street carts that lined the sides of the sinister, electric carnival.

Loopy bums lingered around random garbage and car fires, chugging booze and dropping bonzos like they were members of some deranged street gang.

Young, low-level Rotech salesmen wearing douchey, blackmarket, tech-suits pulled wagons stuffed with outdated tech to hawk and inject into the unruly masses by way of their corpo overlords. They glowed in a luminous blue-white hue from the shield-skin that protected their bodies. They gripped onto electric knives, beam rifles strapped around their necks to keep the district’s notorious thieves at bay.

“Rotech, here!” one of the salesmen shouted. “Cheap tech, here! Air purifiers, fifty credits… antique, augmented reality goggles, just thirty credits. We got self-injected neural lace… silicon transplants… implantable microchips… synthetic brain boosters… smart wire… bionic eyes… buy one get one… I said, Rotech, here!”

Mitch slogged on by without a credit to his name. When he reached the other side of the street, he tilted his head back and gandered at the eerie sky. His eyes bounced around aimlessly, slack jaw dripped drool as his torso swayed like he stirred the pungent air, thick with mold.

Miniature delivery drones buzzed in chaotic patterns, dropping packages of tech on expecting nomads. An endless array of electronic billboards illuminated the ghostly, gray backdrop like a kaleidoscopic rainbow reflected off of the gloomy clouds of smog. Flashing fiberglass images hung high above the street and ignited Twilight District beneath a neon glow that glimmered off of the faces of drifting bums and busy nomads.

Holographic advertisements danced in the silver air. Each one demanding that the people of Rosenfell BUY! BUY! BUY! THIS WEAPON FROM ROTECH AND CONSUME! CONSUME! CONSUME! THAT BONZO FROM CORPOMAX. Sensory overload to confuse the senses and bombard brains with the latest and greatest in corpo marketing propaganda.

Mitch grunted, plopped a glob of crimson saliva onto the crumbled road, bloodied from his sore gums. He turned right and tramped along the row of bars and restaurants buzzing with a mess of noise, thumping and bumping with the melodic beats of electro-jazz.

“Hey, you!” a tall African American man yelled from about ten feet ahead. He pointed in Mitch’s direction, dancing feet and grooving hips shaking to the jazzy beat. He was so tall that the top of his afro scratched the building’s crumbled, concrete overhang.

Mitch looked left, right, prepared his body to run in case this synthetic tree limb recognized him from a previous robbery.

“Yes, you!” the man confirmed. “How about some booze? It’s happy hour, every hour, here at my saloon! What’chu say?”

“I’m busy,” Mitch said, shoving past the man.

“Well, alright, alright! Just remember, booze-a-plenty, here at Reggie’s!” he said, turning to dance and pester the next passerby.

Mitch stomped ahead like a lab-grown salmon fighting upstream, bumping shoulders and stepping on the toes of nomads flowing in the opposite direction. He snarled with angry grunts and uncontrollable sniffs, deflecting every one of their upturned noses. Blocking their sneers and shoves, their leers and hisses without losing the focus of his one-pointed mind.

He struggled ahead for another block, turned left down a cramped alley about ten feet in width, and then stopped in front of a canopy jungle of black and blue tarps slung from the wall and tied to metal stakes and wooden pallets, tilted upright to create a poor man’s penetrable fortress.

Mitch grunted, smacked his chest, expelled the mucus stuck in his throat, and then knocked on one of the pallets.

A rapid sniff followed by a series of hoarse coughs arose from within the fort.

“Who’s there?” a woozy voice asked.

“Mitch,” he said. “What else you got?”

“Who?”

“Mitch.”

“Who?” the voice asked, louder.

“Mitch Henderson. Was here an hour ago. Need more bonzos.”

A piece of the tarp flung open, revealed the scowling face of a filthy man with a wiry, brown and gray beard. His pupils were four sizes too large, three shades too black.

“What happened to the jawbreakers I just gave you?” the dealer asked, furrowed brows a bushy mess.

“Already took ’em. Need more.”

“Don’t got no more in your bum price range. Beat it!” he screamed, throwing the tarp shut.

“Psh!” Mitch scoffed, flicking forward his open palms. He turned and trudged away from the bonzo troll’s fort.

“Wait!” the troll said, canopy rustling. “Said I don’t got nothing in your price range. Don’t mean we can’t make some kind of deal.”

“What you want?” Mitch asked, hurrying back.

“Got some jellies right here,” the troll said, dangling a baggie stuffed with globs of sticky, colorful jewels out from his alley hideout. The slimy jellies stuck to the side of the bag like melted gumdrops. “Some real bangers. Will melt your mind in a hallucinogenic trance like you never experienced before.”

Mitch licked his lips, flung his right arm at the bag, whiffed at empty space as the troll sucked the baggie back inside. He shook his head and balled his hands into fists at his failure of a quick bonzo boost.

“Don’t got enough,” he said.

“I know that, bum. That’s why I said we can make a deal.”

Mitch leaned forward, looked into the open slit, stared into the troll’s feral eyes.

“What’chu want?” he asked.

“You know the Tech Armory?” the bonzo troll said, poking his head through the open flap.

Mitch scratched his coarse beard with his filthy fingers. The back of his right hand looked like it had been dipped in a bucket of boiling water. Leathery skin, reddened with flakes and bubbles.

“Maybe.”

“It’s about a half-mile down the street,” the troll said, nodding in the direction Mitch came. “They’ve got this new weapon, straight from Rotech.”

“What kind?” Mitch asked.

“A fucking railgun!” the troll shouted, smacking and rattling the canopy. “Can you believe it? Right here in the Twilight, on display for any old fool to swipe.”

“Why you need a railgun for?”

“Got to protect the merchandise,” the troll said, hitching a thumb over his shoulder. “And besides, a fucking railgun is badass.”

“What’s it look like?”

“Man, she’s a beauty!” the troll said, glossy-eyed. “Looks like it’s straight out of a VIRT-REAL. The muzzle is built around a glowing tube of blue with these energy coil things around it. It’s got these connecting rod nozzle type things with gears and pumps that grow out of the top and sides. It has-”

“Sounds like’a waste of parts,” Mitch said.

“You say that now,” the troll said, wagging his finger at Mitch, “but when you see it, you will appreciate the fine craftsmanship.”

“Probably not.”

“It’s handheld. Small enough to fit inside of your coat pocket, just in case you need to surprise someone when you want to blast them into a different dimension. Pew! Pew! Pew!” the troll screamed, firing off a few invisible rounds with his two finger guns, voice ricocheting off of the slimy brick walls leading into the shadows in the alley beyond. He brought each index finger to his lips, blew away thin streams of imaginary smoke. “Anyway, you won’t miss it. It’s tucked under a glass display case with a bunch of lights shining on it. What kind of idiot puts a piece of expensive tech like that on display in the Twilight? They are begging to be robbed. And you, my sneaky bum accomplice, will be the one to steal it.”

“I bring you the railgun and you give me the jellies?”

“Simple as that, no strings attached.”

“The whole bag?”

“The whole bag.”

Mitch chewed on his lower lip and then used his gnawed tongue to trace his grimy teeth and rotten gums.

“Alright, be back inna couple minutes,” he said, stumbling back towards the alley entrance.

“Ha! It’ll take longer than that,” the troll shouted, voice chasing after him. “Good luck!”

Mitch squeezed onto the main road and marched back the way he came, passing through the pungent clouds of mildewy, eye-watering, throat-constricting stench of the Twilight, shoving past nomads munching on synthetic food, chattering mindlessly outside the carts and shops. Their faces set ablaze by the neon glow of the electric city. Each one was as covered in tech as the next. Biological flesh arms and legs chopped off, replaced with carbon fiber and titanium and cheap silicon prosthetics. Elemental garments covered their bodies, fabrics fashioned with strips of fire and zigzagging electricity, sloshing water and bundles of plasma. Geometric patterns that shifted into abstract shapes with any slight movement. Tech fiends in a city of freaks.

Mitch stomped through the crowd like a forcefield of odor hovered around his body, parting the sea of people in front of him with each languished step.

“Changed your mind? Come on in, then!” Reggie shouted. He put his right palm over his navel, stretched out his left arm towards his bar, and dipped into a bow.

Mitch slowed down, looking into the bar at the smooth sounds of electro-jazz flowing from the stage at the back.

“You got bonzos?”

“Bonzos? No. But I got plenty of boo-”

“Then fuck off. I need bonzos.”

“Hey, hey, fella! No need to get excited! Just remember, booze-a-plenty, here at Reggie’s,” the owner said, shaking his hands and legs, pointing up at the neon sign above the door.

Reggie’s glowed bright orange. Saloon in royal purple, but it was missing the second O.

“Your sign’s broken,” Mitch said.

Reggie stepped out from under the overhang, looked up.

“Aww c’mon now,” Reggie said, placing his hands on his hips. “Must be why everyone walks past. They think I’m choppin’ hair!”

“Must be,” Mitch said.

“Nova!” Reggie yelled, turning into his bar. “The damn sign’s broken again…”

His baritone voice trailed off, overtaken by the electro-jazz and droning hum of downtown Rosenfell. Mitch trudged back along the walking path outside tech-shops and synth-food restaurants, walking for several blocks before tiptoeing to a stop. He crouched behind a collection of muddy, rain-soaked barrels slapped with hazmat and skull and crossbones stickers, wrapped his fingers over the top of the furthest barrel on the left, and peeked over it.

The Tech Armory was tucked up against a row of rusty brick and silvery stone buildings. It was surrounded by three concrete barriers constructed like a road block. Plumes of noxious fumes and smoke swirled up from vents and grates covering the ground.

An assortment of antique, propulsion, gunpowder weapons hung from ropes nailed on slabs of wood along the back wall. In front of that, two tables covered with advanced tech and handheld weapons: rocket launchers that fired off an electromagnetic pulse; spike pistols that flung poisonous darts; CorpoMax energy rifles constructed with clear fiberglass; golden revolvers that fired carbon rounds; samurai swords charged with electricity; magnetic throwing knives that boomeranged back into the hand of its thrower.

At the center of the booth, brilliant, fluorescent light shined up into a glass dome. Resting on a perch inside, was the railgun.

Every few seconds, the energy coursing through the weapon’s blue beam would shift, flowing from the back to the front like an oscillating wave.

Mitch was so mesmerized by the energy that he barely registered the shift of darkness in the breathing shadows on the sides of the case.

His eyelids expanded, focused eyes flicked towards the dome’s left, then to its right.

“Fuck…”