[V]

PRESENT

03:28:45 am

"You're a bitter old fool, Costello!"

"At least I know what the hell I am Vex. Do you even have any idea?"

"What do you think? I might have made certain mistakes in the past, Michael. But don't take me for an unaltered fool!"

"O.K" I said. "I won't."

"Good."

"Do you have any idea?"

"God, this again. Brutus, please tell this nostalgic fool that times have changed, please inform him that old-school, hard-boiled, investigating detectives are a thing of the past! Tell him that watching too much noir flicks have damaged his mind!"

"Oh, you're the one to talk about damaged minds, Love. What about you? I'm surprised you can even remember your name." She'd struck low. Good for her.

"Oh, I remember my name, Costello, and you had better, too. Try calling me love one more time, and you'll see what's what, I swear to god."

"I cannot wait. I've all the time in the world, that is, until she catches up to you! YOU IDIOTIC, DREAMY FOOLS! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!!"

"That's eno-"Brutus started to say.

"What do you think you are? A buncha dreamy fools out to do some good. What, you're cowboys and robbers, now?"

"Costel-"Brutus started to say again.

"You think you're revolutionaries? Legionaries? Out to change the world?"

"You're the one to talk about change." Vex remarked in a whisper.

"That's a thing of the past." I didn't want to get too personal in front of Brutus. She'd kept him along, I was aware of this fact, and the fact that I was aware of the fact and could do nothing about it irritated me.

The fact that Brutus' hand was resting on Vex's shoulder irritated me beyond description.

"And that's where it should remain.", I added through clenched teeth. Hell, I was bitter. I was making a scene. I was being overly dramatic. I was unnecessarily passionate.

Hell if I could help it, though.

I had all the right, or so I thought I did. What the hell did it matter, huh?

"Oh, believe me, you archaic idiot. Believe me, I wouldn't have it any other way." Her eyes shone dangerously between narrow slits.

She seemed calm, completely still.

Like a still water hiding dozens of sharp rocks underneath.

Suffice to say, I was in hazardous waters.

Dying to take a dive.

How lovely.

Instead I decided to take a hike.

I told them that.

Brutus decided he had other ideas but Vex stopped the old gorilla.

Good for her.

The sharp cold of the wet street outside slapped me in the face.

Everything irritated me. Everything was subjective. I hated those pile of flesh throwing their bodies around to the same tune from before. Nothing stood the same. The music irritated me. People were never the same, they'd change, and their agendas changed with it; when they were good for their words, it was for all the wrong reasons. The booze irritated me. No one was happy with what they got; everyone wanted just more of it. The squeaky dance floor irritated me. No more natural anymore, everything synthetic, even the music, mankind had finally found the magic words to cheat death itself, and they were using it to get high.

The new, alien smell of the Cherri Wood irritated me. I was feeling vexed. My feet soles wouldn't stop throbbing.

I realized I had missed the old saloon, I didn't know if there were any other pubs, saloons, or bars left in town that didn't involve junked up punks or scoundrels, or synthetic tunes. I longed to listen to jazz. Classic. Baroque. Anything.

The fact that I was an old dog still having the blues for an old world long gone by irritated me beyond everything.

Maybe they were right, maybe my time had passed.

Here it was, case closed. I could rest now.

Okay, maybe it wasn't.

Still a lot of questions needing answer and I was feeling that I could not easily give up on Vex so easily. Not when I'd found her.

Brutus and his merry gang of old fools were after the big prize. None other than the good old DAWN_P0UR Corp. They had tricked themselves into believing they could tackle a multi-billion international corporation enema.

I had tried to warn them but that in turn had quickly degraded into an argument about Vex's certain choices involving death and undeath.

I thought I'd be happier to see her, no doubt she'd thought the same.

I was back on my way to the Cherri Wood, having cooled off my steam, wandering around shaggy streets with even shaggier names, when a figure stepped into the scene a dozen meters ahead of me from some back alley, standing under a street light as yellow light it was a skidrow not yet blessed by dawnpour, washed over him and the darkness beyond illuminated his clean-cut edges.

Not for the first time I wondered if everything else in the world was just as perfect, that if everything was staged, planned, or written down ahead of the time they were presented before me. I wondered if people had timetables stuck on their walls, next to their intricately planned table of well, plans.

This, also, irritated me. Too much perfection would make me gag, and I had no such traces of it on myself. I was simply imperfect. I often wondered if that meant I was inferior, to everyone else.

People would often stare at my face, wondering why I wouldn't get any plastic surgery, why I would walk around at this day and age with this face.

Wondering if I was a perv or a killer for contract what in all the long coat, busted up ugly face and the permanent grimace stuck on it which I was often told that it gave me the expression that of a serial killer.

It seemed everyone except myself had the perfect idea about what a killer's expression was supposed to look like.

I stopped in my tracks, the figure took no note of me, and so I decided the same, making sure to get a hold of the snub-nosed revolver in my pocket which wouldn't stay in my palm. Then just as I'd stopped I kept on walking, wondering what was going to happen.

"A cold night, isn't it?" He said through clenched teeth with a thick as a thumb cigar entrenched between them. I saw that he too was wearing a coat, a black one. Mine was cream. He was wearing circular goggles that resembled pilot goggles. He had on a hat.

I couldn't really pick his face. His goggles reflected the yellow street light back like those of an owl.

"A wicked wet one if I've ever seen one. They say it's only going to get worse." I answered. My wonder only kept on growing.

You won't need that snub-nosed revolver in your pocket. I am no threat. Although there are those that would like it so." The stench was almost as thick as the cigar it emanated from.

"I'd like to believe that."

"Surely you would."

"You got any light? Mine's busted because of all the rain."

"Sure." He handed me a Zippo lighter with strange engravings running over it.

I liked that.

I forked out a cigarette and lit it while my new friend kept staring at the overcast sky from the brim of his hat. I handed it back.

"You keep it. Smoking's bad for you, you know."

"So they say. Thank you."

"It's strange. I thought you'd be asking me a thousand questions by now."

"Maybe. Maybe I'm busted, too. Maybe I've grown tired of it all."

"There are those that'd like you outta the game, you know. To some you're just a pawn, and to others a valuable knight, to be thrown into the middle of a battle. If you die, you die a hero, if you come back, you keep fighting until you, again, die a hero. But that's not how it is out in the real world is it? Out here, in the real world, you die or you keep on living until you die again. And there are no heroes. No happy endings. It's strange about stories with happy endings. 'And they lived happily ever after.' Buncha nonsense." He kept puffing at his cigar passively as he spoke. Those goggles looked hypnotizing. "There are no happy endings. It's just where the story cuts off. Because no one would like to see what happens after. Because not even the story teller has the balls to show it clear and true."

"That's a cynical way of looking at it." I said, not really caring if I'd die long as I had a cigarette stuck between my lips. I kept flipping the Zippo lighter between calloused fingers as I firmly held the revolver in my pocket with the other.

"And true." I added.

"I'm glad we agree on this. I had a notion we'd understand each other. You know what they call you? A freak of nature. An abnormality. A lunatic. Two dozen years ago you'd be considered sane and normal, just as anyone, and those people would be thrown into asylums by white-coated shrinks. But today, you're the one who's not normal."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Because I don't give into the entire new tech, I know."

"Your profession is considered archaic. It's funny; I was honestly surprised when I learned I was actually 'least ten years older than you. By their standards, I should be pre-historic. May I ask, out of personal curiosity, why all this? Why are you so stubborn about being stuck in the past so? Was it really that good of a time for ya?"

I flashed him an exceptionally hideous grin.

Faint resemblances of long forgotten memories suddenly resurfaced. Out of the blue, now I could hear a screaming boy, a pointlessly furious old man with snow in his hair, a certain smack of a belt. A broken gameboy on the ground.

I could smell the rusty stink of the alcohol in his breath again, I could taste the salty residue of the kid's tears, and I could feel the dust over the old noir flicks. Lying broken next to the gameboy. I could see the boy finally get fed up, reach the kitchen, happy and content. I could watch him look at his reflection surfacing on the reflective side of a naked white knife. His empty expression forever lost on a sea of crimson as it slowly covered the white blade like a tidal wave.

I flicked the cigarette away. Suddenly feeling empty.

It landed a few meters away, in the middle of the crumbled old dark road full of potholes and hidden dangers and broken glass fragments.

I forked out another goddamn cigarette and lit it, nearly biting off its filter between misshaped yellow teeth. My two front teeth weren't really mine. I had them replaced when I'd turned 20 because the filling of one had chipped off, leaving behind a huge hole that had given my lovely complexion the expression that of a meth head. I was missing four teeth.

In regards of genetics, I hadn't really won the lottery. Instead I was turned and fucked over by it.

I kept puffing, filling my lungs with smoke hoping one of these days I'd catch cancer.

I could feel those shining yellow goggles sinking into my skin, muscle and bone and gaze into my soul.

Good for him, there were nothing there.

"Yeah, a lovely time and how."

"Yeah, I was warned about your petty sarcasm."

"You haven't heard the half of it, then, pal."

"And nor have you. These days no one stay dead. People are screaming, immortality is here, and how! Buncha hypocritical chicken-heads. It's not immortality that's been found, it's undeath. All the stories about noble knights dying and returning undead only to be shunned by their loved ones, cursed with the ever-lasting agony of rotting life unable to die; well, Costello, they are true. There are terrible things lurking out there in the night. Things that wait in ambush for prey. Ghosts walk among us, my friend. Skeletons with metal bones and synthetic marrow in'em. Root cells. Cybernetics. "Aesthetic" Surgeries. All this shitty neon and leds making my eyes fucking water. It's disgusting. I understand ya, ya know. I understand ya."

"Yeah." I flicked away the ash; it dissolved in the darkness of some gutter.

"And you understand me. There is a revolution comin', Costello. I say stick with the tech junkies and all those scoundrels. The other side's not so pretty, they're the ones that want the old order. It was easier, now it's a tad bit hard to control everyone. The city's finally gone bust. Everyone's gone crazy, yet you're the one who's outcast. They say you're the lunatic, but to me, seems you're the only one who's sane enough these days."

"I couldn't dramatize it better myself."

"You're honest I like that."

"Yeah, what's your name anyway?"

"A friend."

"I doubt that."

"I don't."

"I bet." I whispered into the empty street. I knew he was gone, what else?

I kept flicking the lighter between my fingers. Holding onto it like my sanity depended on it. If it were to dissolve, too, I'd know I had finally lost it.

The cigarette started to burn my lips.

[•••|∆|•••]

"Okay," I said to the group encircling me, back at the Cherri Wood. "I'll help ya."

"Why the sudden change of heart?" Asked Brutus brusquely, he was the boss of the whole deal, a total hulk of a man with shoulders expanding over two kilometers; there was a suspicious gaze in his molten stare.

"I'd told you he'd be back." Said Vex, with a triumphant expression on her face. She was the master thief of the Tech Junkies. For years she'd helped them loan money from the bank. The slow legal process was not always so legal. Or slow.

"So what, old man? You gonna show us some tricks?" Said a punk that went with the name of Peregrin. He had the stature, nose, eyes and the vulgar expression of a vulture. He looked like a walking bag of skeletons, with parched brunet skin. He was a marksman.

"And old dog teaching us tricks." Surmised Jack of Gold. Or Jack of the Treat. Or Jack of Hearts. Or Jack of Any-Penny, depending on whom you asked.

He was the data-scoundrel with the golden canine tooth which he'd often flash in an easy roguish smile he'd often claim the ladies' simply could do but not resist. The cybernet jacks were hidden underneath his long dark wavy hair. I wanted to punch him the moment I laid eyes on him.

"I like detectives." Mused the blonde with the perfect brows, eyes, lashes, nose, the full red mouth that did not even need a lipstick, and the wonderful set of pearl-white teeth. She looked perfect. A Mona Lisa what with all the right proportions in all the right places. Her name was Perfekta; she was the black widow of the operation. She looked great; I knew from just looking at her that the only thing real was her hair colour.

"I say let him. He looks like he needs some real food. Or real clothes. And a bath. And some rest, for crying out loud, he looks worse than when Ve-"

The one called Armington suddenly fell silent under the burning gaze of Vex. He was an old military contractor, the center of all connections that surrounded the whole gang. He was bald with thick brown beard. He was the only one with scars on their face next to Vex and Brutus and myself.

"All of the above." Said the Redhead one between pursed lips. She had exceptionally long canine teeth that ended in sharp metal tips. I couldn't quite make out if it was a he or a she, so I stuck with the Redhead, like everyone else did. The Redhead was the lead hacker. The Redhead was slim and had a quick form and lips that looked even better than Perfekta's. Something about it attracted me. When it caught my stare it smiled, flashing those two canines like those of a vampire; as blood-red, soft lips stretched in a stunning smile, lips that were enveloped in milky-white skin.

I found myself grinning back like an idiot; the smile, which was often described as being hideous, did not have the same effect as it often did on others.

The Redhead only smiled larger, much so that it seemed impossible that a normal person could stretch their mouth so wide.

I turned to Vex, arms crossed, looking cross and wild and, oh god, fiery. She looked like liquid flame. I could feel the heat, the fury enemating from her.

I didn't flinch.

"I had a sudden inspirational visit." I answered Brutus. "A real game changer."

"An inspirational visit, you say." Said Vex.

A few others snorted in response.

"If you say so, but I cannot have you make a scene again, not in front of everyone. I need your word on this. I need your word, that you won't go out to rat to a certain Ms. White."

"Of course not." I answered between clenched teeth as I lit the cigarette with the Zippo that hadn't dissolved into thin air just yet. Vex was watching my every move. The flames danced in her eyes, unusually reflective and unnatural under the fluorescent light. Unnatural. Abnormal. Eyes that did not belong to her. Brown. Her eyes used to be brown. Now they looked alien, like two blue wells, hiding a burning fury underneath and not really being successful at it.

"I," Said Brutus in a voice that demanded attention.", I need your word, Mr. Costello."

"You can have it."

"Say. It."

"I give you my solemn word in an exceptionally honest and sorrowful manner. You wanna shake hands on it?"

"Good. That won't be necessary."

"That's lovely, so, do any of you have any cigarettes? Mine's out, and I don't wanna go out into the rain."

"I've got a few packs lying around, you can have any you find.

"Thanks, Love."

"It's nothing."

She had started smoking.

How lovely

TO BE CONTINUED..