Weary Traveler

Rotech’s employee lofts ascended into the cast iron sky. A colossal fortress of matte gray stone and black steel that stretched beyond the cloudy haze. Tinted windows, black as the smoke shooting out of chimneys and vents from the surrounding factories and warehouses, covered the length of the towers, reflecting the giant columns of stadium floodlights shining down from above.

Mitch rocked from his heels to the balls of his feet, drummed his fingers on his left hand against his thigh, and chewed the cuticles on his manicured right hand. He changed into a pair of black slacks with a matching, tailored jacket and a fresh, jade-green dress shirt, unbuttoned halfway to reveal his hairy, muscular chest.

His eyes flicked back and forth, watching electric cars and fancy, tech-limousines roll through the arched roadway on the right, stop at the entrance to pick up or drop off a pack of corpo players, and then continue on out of the other side of the arch. The women were clad in fancy dresses that glimmered and sparkled as they moved, and the men wore slick, slim-cut suits. Mostly black and charcoal gray with a few midnight blue traced by fiberoptic cables that connected to the tech in their augmented bodies.

An armored, obsidian limousine with blacked-out windows and icy, blue lights underneath the length of the chassis rolled through the archway, idled at the entrance, pulsing an electric hum.

Mitch took a step backwards, but nobody stepped out. No sign of movement until the back window rolled down halfway and a thin plume of cigar smoke wafted into the humid, summertime air, joined the mechanical aromas wafting through the district. He looked around, no one in sight, so he marched to the back window and peeked inside. Vincent was seated in the middle seat, faint sound of electro-jazz flowing from the speakers.

“Mitch Henderson,” Vincent said, turning slowly to stare up at Mitch through the smoke of his cigar, “let’s get moving, we’ve got work to do.”

A door panel slid open a few feet to Mitch’s right. He ducked his head and climbed through, selecting a seat that was diagonal to Vincent on the left side of the cabin. Then the door slid closed, vehicle lurched forward. The battery from the electric engine was silent, only the roll of the rubber tires across the pavement and the faint sound of music filled the air.

“Would you be so kind as to press that red button on the armrest on your left and let the driver know our destination?”

Mitch lifted his arm, pressed the button.

“Hello? Our destination is an abandoned building in the Pearl District. It’s across the street from Rosenfell Armory,” Mitch said, releasing the button.

“Understood,” a stoic voice said.

“Now… tell me more about this Mexican gangster, Jefe. You say he’s dangerous?” Vincent said.

“Yes, sir. He rules over Rosenfell’s bonzo black market. Uses his security to kill the competition and suck up all of their profits.”

“Is that so? My, my, sounds like someone who has yet to learn the importance of respect and honor. One more time… tell me how you came across such a creature?”

Mitch shifted in the stiff, leather seat.

“When I was a mercenary, I stole a railgun from his security,” Mitch said. “But they found me later. Knocked me out and dragged me to Jefe’s office.”

“A railgun? That’s an expensive weapon. Rotech makes those for our wealthiest clients. Where do you think a man like Jefe would have received such a firearm?”

“He must have stolen it from a transport. Or maybe from a corpo warehouse.”

“Let us hope for his sake that it is not one of Rotech’s weapons or else we will have to ask for that back as well.”

“Did you bring a weapon with you?” Mitch asked.

“We won’t be needing one,” Vincent said between cigar puffs.

“Vincent, sir, it’s going to require more than just asking to get the tech back. I mean, even if you are the CEO of Rotech. Rosenfell’s gangsters don’t care. Especially one as bad as Jefe.”

“No,” Vincent said, shaking his head, “I am not going to ask. You are going to tell Mr. Jefe that you are taking your tech back. You tell him that you risked your life to steal it from the Crawlers’ compound and you need it to… oh, I don’t know, save the world or something.”

Mitch perked up in his seat. The image of the black-robed, angel of the past, Raphael, flashed across his mind.

“Save the world?” he asked, a quiver of anxious hesitation in his voice, prodding Vincent to elaborate on his statement.

“Sure, why not? Every corpo has got something to contribute to this dying planet.”

“Only corpos?”

“Yes… only corpos. Nomads are too busy buying and consuming. Always buying and consuming and chopping off their fucking limbs for the latest corpo-tech. They are human garbage disposals. Walking landfills wandering through Rosenfell seeking out the latest trends to distract their minds from the reality of their utter misery.”

“What about the bums?” Mitch asked before he could stop himself.

Vincent clamped his lips shut, turned his head, and looked down his nose, glared at Mitch.

“What about the fucking bums?”

Mitch gulped a clump of spit down his aching throat.

“What do you think the bums can contribute to the planet?” he asked. “Can a bum save a dying world from civil unrest and societal collapse?”

Vincent placed his cigar on the ashtray next to a set of empty scotch glasses and a crystal bottle of the bronze booze. A faint stream of smoke squirmed to the limo’s roof, dispersed outwards like vines from synthetic ivy. He inhaled a long, deep breath through his nostrils, released it back out of his mouth. Then focused his piercing leer straight at Mitch.

“Do not fuck with me, Mitch Henderson.”

Mitch shrunk into the shell of himself, tiny pupils expanded, rotated to scan the potential threat.

“I’m not, Vincent. I was just curious about your opinion on all aspects of Rosenfell’s people.”

“The bums are an abomination. A complete degradation and stain upon this city. The sooner we wipe out the bums the sooner we can capture a level of peace and sanity. Bums are a disgusting product of the decisions that they alone make. They are wholly responsible for their actions and deserve to rot to death with the rest of the garbage in Rosenfell’s landfill.”

Mitch stifled a chuckle at the mental image of his half-dead body crawling over shattered glass, decayed bodies, and stinking, black bags of green slime and brown sludge. The memory carried an asphyxiating aroma of near death into his nostrils.

“I agree,” Mitch said. “The bums must be eradicated so that the wealthy, corpo class can reign as the rightful, superior race.”

“Eugenics. The future is ours to steal. The time of the corpo revolution is near, which will bring about their end time,” Vincent said, pinching his cigar and bringing it up to his lips for a long puff that filled his cheeks.

A sharp pain sliced into Mitch’s palms. He looked down at the veins popping out of the top of his shaky hands, dislodged his nails from his flesh, and stretched his fingers, using his thumb to massage the marks dug into his skin.

“Your destination approaches, Mr. Walker,” the driver said over the intercom speaker.

Mitch tried to look through the tint, but the protective film was too dark. He rolled down the window to his right and stared at the familiar setting, Rosenfell’s Armory barely standing as a crumbled beacon of the district’s abandonment.

The limousine swung in a wide arch and parked outside Jefe’s office. Mitch lowered his head, looked out Vincent’s half-open window, waited for him to make his move.

Vincent lifted his left arm and pecked at the radiant band of tech that wrapped around his wrist. He lifted his gaze and stared at Mitch, face adorned with a quiet smirk.

“Why don’t you head in first? I need to make a quick call.”

“Vincent…” Mitch said, “Mr. Walker… I don’t know about that.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Jefe’s going to kill me.”

“He’s going to kill you because he said he would. Nothing more than an idle threat made by a gangster coward.”

“You don’t know Jefe like I do,” Mitch said.

Vincent shrugged.

“We are all strangers to each other,” Vincent said. “That is, until we meet one’s truest, most authentic, self. Don’t you agree?”

“Sure, but I don’t think anyone’s ever told Jefe that.”

Vincent lifted his right arm and pressed a button that opened the door on Mitch’s left.

“Tell this Mexican gangster that you would like your tech back or else this will be his last day on this planet. Go on,” Vincent said, shooing Mitch out the door.

Mitch bit down on his teeth from behind clamped lips, stepped outside and trudged forward. He looked over his shoulders, scanned the deserted surroundings. The rundown district was trapped under thicker plumes than before, blackened from a lack of neon lights illuminating the abandoned buildings. The remaining fluorescence from old street lights cast a rotten, yellow glow on the smashed sidewalk and crumbled roads. Broken glass crunched beneath Mitch’s dress shoes, creating a symphony of sound all the way to the front door.

He calmed his nerves, gulped down a breath. Then gripped the handle, twisted, and pushed it open into the office.

Jefe was sprawled face down on a padded table while a slender, white woman with carbon fiber arms massaged his giant, bare back, glistening with oil. She pressed her palms into his flesh, dug her elbows in and rotated to grind out the bulging knots.

Mitch looked around the candlelit room. No sign of Felix and Sebastian. His eyes settled on the back wall. The Crawler tech was secured inside of a glass display case. Each item seated atop its own pedestal with a single spotlight shining upon it from the top of the case like a museum housing magical toys sent from the future.

Mitch strolled over to the massage table, stopped about ten feet away.

“Leave!”

The woman screamed, nearly jumped out of her slippers before scurrying out the front door.

“Oh, ho ho!” Jefe boomed into the bed pad like a Mexican Santa Claus “You got some huevos on you, cabrón.” He propped up onto his arms and slid a carbon-laced glock, traced with red beams from underneath the pillow, swung his legs around and sat on the edge of the massage table with his elbow on his knee and the muzzle aimed at Mitch’s face.

“Who the fuck are you?” Jefe said.

“You don’t recognize me?”

Jefe scanned Mitch up and down, shook his head.

“I don’t fucking know you, esse. But if I had to guess I’d say you are a dead man.”

“I could say the same about you,” Mitch said, pointing at Jefe. He puffed his chest, grew in confidence as he let the anger swirl and rage inside of him. “I came back for the tech you stole from me.”

Jefe leapt off of the massage table, charged at Mitch, collided into him and ran him backwards until his back smacked against the wall so hard that it shook the building, knocked pictures off of the walls, shattered glass across the wooden floor.

“What did you say, puto?” Jefe asked, forearm wedged against Mitch’s throat.

“That’s my Crawler-”

A door swung open at the back-right corner of the room and in barged Felix and Sebastian, chests heaving, breaths panting.

“You good, Jefe?” Felix asked.

“Cállate!” Jefe screamed at the goons without looking away from Mitch. His face tightened from the bulging muscles in his clenched jaw, tendons pulled taut in his stump neck. He eased up on Mitch’s windpipe enough for him to speak.

“You should have killed me when you had the chance,” Mitch said with a scratchy throat. “Now, for the last time, give me my Crawler tech or else this will be the last day you spend on this planet.”

Jefe belted a booming laugh that popped Mitch’s ears and filled them with a pulsating ring like a shockwave rippled from an explosion.

“Mitch fucking Henderson,” Jefe said, scanning Mitch’s corpo attire. Studying his clear skin and sober facial features. “You might look like a fucking corpo, but your voice still sounds like a weak, little bitch and you are still as stupid as the bum I remember. What happened to you? God gave you a new lease on life, huh?”

Felix and Sebastian stepped forward and planted themselves behind Jefe, smothering the bum they left for dead.

“Cleaned myself up after you and these fucking buffoons-”

“Me and the buffoons thought you were dead, puto. Looks like we will have to kill you again,” Jefe said. He stepped back and dug the obsidian glock into Mitch’s forehead.

“You know, Jefe…” Vincent said from the other side of the room, “I hate when you make me come down here. Brings up bad memories… stirs up the things I’d prefer to keep buried and forgotten.”

Jefe eked out a gasp like he had been punched in the stomach. His eyelids ripped open as the blood drained from his face like a ghost squeezed its way into his enormous body.

The pistol dropped from his hands, clattered against the wooden floorboards, and his bare body whipped around so fast that the towel around his waist whirled like a cheap gown blown in the wind.

“Pa- Pa- Patrón,” Jefe stuttered, choked by a swollen tongue and a shrunken throat. “It ain’t what it looks like!”

He joined the two trolls and stepped backwards until they were shoulder-to-shoulder, backs flush against the wall. They stared at Vincent across the room, seated at the desk with his feet kicked up, hands fiddling with Jefe’s golden-chrome ray gun.

Mitch peeled himself off of the wall, scooped up Jefe’s glock, and backed away from the three gangsters, weapon aimed at Jefe.

“We had a deal, Jefe,” Vincent said. “I allow you to operate Rosenfell’s bonzo black market, and you send me my share of the profits.”

“But Patrón, I do! I do send you the profits!” Jefe pleaded, palms touching in front of his chest. “Por favor!”

Vincent pressed his lips into a tight slit, shook his head, glared across the room with a fierce scowl.

“There was a time when I may have believed you. But now? Now? I look at you in that fucking towel, getting a peaceful massage… buying all your fancy gangster clothes… all of your advanced tech and your weapons- the majority of which come straight from Rotech- and then I find out that you are keeping Crawler tech from me? From me!”

“Patrón, I swear! Por-”

“You make me come all the way here and I find out that the tech is tucked away inside of a fucking display case to stroke your puny ego-”

“Patrón, I was going to tell you about it, but-”

“Silence!” Vincent screamed. His right arm shot upwards and fired off two quick shots that ripped through the middle of Felix and Sebastian’s foreheads, leaving each with a fuming hole.

Their bodies swayed like two criminals in a low-budget virtual cinema flick, tipped backwards and slid down the wall, leaving behind two streaks of scarlet like rope slung around their necks.

Mitch peeked out from behind his arms that had wrapped around his head, stared at the lifeless bodies crumbled atop the floor as the blood drained.

“Holy shit, Vincent!” Mitch yelled, backing away from the dead bodies.

“Patrón, por favor!” Jefe wailed. “I can make it up to you!”

“You have nothing to offer me. You are a product of my creation. There is no Jefe without me there to supply you with everything in this fucking building.”

“Information!” Jefe said, glancing at Mitch. “I can give you information.”

Mitch’s rabid heartbeat accelerated. His palms perspired, soaked the glock clutched in his hand. He placed his index finger over the trigger, prepared his consciousness to fire and take the life of the one that left him for dead.

“Information, little Jefe, is not enough to redeem yourself after betraying me,” Vincent said, aiming the muzzle between Jefe’s plucked eyebrows. “Goodbye.”

“Mitch is a-”

The shot’s shockwave rippled through the air, numbed the cold nerves beneath Mitch’s clammy skin. He opened his right eye, then left, stared at Jefe’s lifeless body sprawled face down across the floor, streaming blood from the hole in his head. Then he exhaled the hot breath that was trapped in his burning lungs.

“I’d call that mission accomplished, isn’t that right, Mitch Henderson?” Vincent asked, tucking the weapon into the waistband behind his back.

“Yeah…” Mitch mumbled, voice echoing through the void within his skull.

“Very well,” Vincent said. He pressed the crystal band of light on his wrist and then stared at a spot on the wall near Mitch. “Dimitri... got a job for your team... Pearl District, across from the Rosenfell Armory... building says Rodriguez on the front door... Yes, confiscate everything and bring it back to the RID... Burn the place down and dispose of the bodies... Let’s see... how about you wrap them up and toss them in the landfill with the rest of Rosenfell’s rubbish…? Excellent, goodbye.”

Vincent pressed the flashing band on his wrist and exhaled a forceful breath.

“Let’s celebrate.”