|
|
|
|
|
|
Amazon.com, 
Amazon.co.uk, 
Amazon.de or 
Amazon.ca
|
 Way of the Warrior  (20 ratings)by Igor Raffaele Page 4 of 10 "Organs, scumbag. 12 children gutted in their beds at the Orphanage. Broken window. Your hovercar's parking suspensors signature on the concrete below it. Where are they?" this time I extend the knuckle blades to their full 20 centimetres, and hold them against his face, so close that he can hear the force field's hum, and feel the air's water content faintly sizzling against the transparent power blades. "I.. I just sold them... my usual buyer. Norsuking Street 35, fifth basement. On order. P-Please don't kill me" whoever gave him that idea? I don't go around kill people. I execute them. But I have better plans for him. I retract my knuckle blades after a moment's hesitation, and then I hit him in the stomach, twice. Each time my punch is strong enough to make his whole body shake. I hear a few ribs creak, but then I remember the look on one of the little corpses' faces, looking like so many broken dolls with ashen faces, abandoned on their doll house beds by a bored kid, and I punch him again. This time the impact lifts his feet clear off the ground. I first let him wheeze for a bit, then I grab him by the throat and look straight in his eyes. I see him flinch, almost as if I'd hit him again, hard. Some people are just too easily impressed. My voice, when it comes out, has the finality of a court judgement, and many a street shark has learned that ignoring that tone can be very painful. "Tomorrow morning, at first light, you will present yourself to the Sisters of Mercy that run the Orphanage, with nothing more than the clothes you are wering. Today you will sell everything you own, and transfer the profits to their account. You will work there until the end of your days. I will check on you. If you do not follow my intructions, I will come after you, wherever you hide. I will not kill you. With the interrogation methods we learn at the Temple, I can keep you alive for a week or more." He blanches as he hears his destiny spelled by my grim voice. I could have killed him, he committed a series of capital offences throughout the years, but the Orphanage needs a few hired hands, and they cannot afford any. Should he really feel tough enough to challenge my judgement, I'll have to unwrap the electric rack again. I leave him gasping, holding his side and looking at the floor, and turn back to the street. Some people stopped to watch, most walked straight by our little scene. One of the few that stopped is a mother holding a child in each hand. She has tears in her eyes, and she bows and steps aside to let me pass. I smile briefly thinking that if nothing else, finding Long John helped me give her some hope, but the smile is quickly crushed by the weight of the world and its responsabilities, and I continue my patrol. The fact that I like to walk my beat every morning like some plodding relic does not mean I am blind to the realities of the sheer size and logistics of the territory entrusted to me, nor that I ignore the more sophisticated electronic surveillance systems available to the discerning vigilante nowadays. I have most of my block rigged with explosion sensors, and a number of high powered cybernet terminals keep an electronic eye for me on a number of key terminals, including the public catastrophy alarm system. I keep constant tabs on the most important corporations' data streams, to make sure that I can send flowers to who robs the big shots before I go to arrest them; I have a constant lookout on the public funds transter network dedicated to pensions and welfare to keep enthusiastic young punks from appropriating money they might need themselves on day; I also pride myself in taking good care of some of those enemies I have not killed yet: they are to be treasured as friends, and they get first class surveillance. Finally, silents alarms will go off any time my own security is breached, or any time a crime is committed outside a mile radius from my actual position, and everything is brought to my attention on the cyberarmour's helmet's internal visor. Today, however, nothing worthy of attracting my little tireless electronic bees' attention happens, and so I can finish my rounds without having to dart all over the place like some badly thrown Laserbowl ball. Not that it makes much difference: this being one of the lower levels of hell and all, its denizens always find something for me to do not to get bored, and to make sure I earn my keep before I can return home for some rest. After apprehending Long John, I toy with the idea of going straight to the organ farm to shut it down for good, but I decide to be the bastard everyone knows me for instead. I make a note to set some of my sureveillance drones in the streets around the supposed location, to monitor its entrances, both the physical and virtual ones. A a few days should be enough to help me identify most of its regular donors, and maybe some of its customers too if I am lucky. Shutting one organ farm dealing in stolen organs is one satisfying thing, but actually managing to choke the demand for those illegally obtained organs will make sure I do not have to worry about having to find and suppress the one that will be opened in its place no more than a few days later. So, the entertainment of dusting my heavy weaponry out postponed for a few days, I continue down the Street. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 Igor Raffaele, sffworld.com. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author. The author has submitted the work in accordance with and in agreement with the following Submission Guidelines. |
Copyright © 1999 - 2004 sffworld.com