Seattle Vance

“I want to know how they found us.” I demanded, nursing a beer on the couch. “Before I take a step out that door, I want to know exactly what happened. Otherwise, our deal is off.”

“You think it’s my job to sort out your fuck up?” The audio distorted voice of Joker spoke from the laptop. ”I don’t know how they found you, and from where I stand, it doesn’t matter. Your team is either captured or dead. The job’s off.”

It was frustrating, not even seeing the face of the guy. On the laptop’s screen was a logo of a stylized joker card. The jester wore two masks, one smiling and the other frowning. That was all that I was allowed to talk to.

“The team wasn’t important. It was the muscle. That’s still in play; I can still do this.”

“Really?” Joker barked a laugh. “Because my enzyme is currently in the floorboards of a CitySec crime scene. How are you going to get that out?”

I bit back a curse. I had no idea how Joker knew about where I stashed the enzyme. He had eyesand ears everywhere.

“You’re talking to a guy who can go invisible. I’ll work it out. Now as for compensation—”

“Compensation!?”

“Yeah, because if you still want this to go down, we’re going to need some assurances going forward. I lost good people today, and what’s left of my guys are booking it to City 35. First, I want new IDs with full bank accounts for their trouble. Second—”

“You assured me your services were pay on completion! And from your previous job, I thought you were professional enough to finish our arrangement without incurring additional expenses. You aren’t getting—”

Joshua came up from behind the laptop and slammed it shut with the palm of his hand. I looked at him with a dour expression.

“He was running a tracer through the signal. Started the moment you began the call.” Joshua explained. “He was going to send someone to finish the job.”

My heart fell in my chest, and I set the beer beside me.

“We don’t know he double-crossed us. The trace doesn’t prove anything,” I replied, but I knew if Joshua said it, then he already had proof.

“Yeah? Well, I did some digging through the CitySec servers. Guess what? One of their auto-seeker drones suddenly received new instructions. It updated its patrolling route—right over your exact location. And here’s the kicker, your building was flagged for interest before it even took flight. Someone tampered with the code so it would pay very special attention to your hideout.”

“So the motherfucker scrapped us? Just like that?” I groaned, running my hands through my hair in disbelief. “He called CitySec on us? Why?”

“Maybe it’s cause he found out about your past. Maybe it’s cause he just got jumpy. But in any case, I just want to say I told you so.” Joshua pointed at me angrily. “I warned you not to do business with the Checkered Hand. Those guys don’t play it by the seat of their pants. They don’t take risks. And they love fucking over guys like us.”

“But you really think he would sacrifice the enzyme?” I asked Joshua, still trying to make it make sense in my head.

Joshua threw up his hands. “The enzyme is fucking peanuts to people like them! Besides, he probably has insiders in CitySec to retrieve it for him. He already knew where it was!”

I downed the rest of my beer, stewing in my own anger. It never gets easy—being disposed of that is. I remember back in 2081 when Cairo kicked off. The Democratic Union had shit their pants when one of their bio-labs was seized by insurrectionists. They promised pardon and citizenship to any abnormal willing to get shipped off. Two bloody years of grueling urban fighting, and for what?

For provisional citizenship? Of getting hounded by regulations and restricted movement, only to get thrown right back into Gen Pop at the slightest inconvenience to our benevolent overlords?

I glanced back up to Joshua. He was the only friend left from my childhood—one of the few who knew the real me. Back when there was a real me to know.

The red-haired computer geek looked like a textbook case of anorexia going on in his thirties. I knew he didn’t eat much, though he said it was to avoid the sterilizers they apparently put in the food supply. Joshua had sunken eyes and a long, hawkish nose. Combined with his pale skin, you might think he was a gremlin who had never seen sunlight. Didn’t dress to impress either. He wore a faded t-shirt and trousers.

He wore glasses too, crooked, with a weird film on them. He had taken that filter thing out of his computer screens so only he could see what he was working on.

Joshua was more paranoid than a schizophrenic, but I always liked him. Even when he was being an ass.

“Seattle, I don’t need this. You roll up in my town talking big about a heist on the ASA, and now half the city is lit up!” Joshua tore into me, more than a little pissed off. He flipped on the tv with his remote. The news was plastered with my face. “The Ghost, a New American Extremist come to liberate the people! That shit is all over the airwaves! Seattle, I don’t need your drama. I don’t want anything to do with the Checkered Hand or ASA or any of it! Listen, you’re going to stay here, stay low, while I fix your mess. I’ll make a few calls and get you out of the city. And then I never want to see your fucking face again!”

“Out of the city?” I quickly glanced up at him. “I’m going for that enzyme, and then I’m going to finish what I started.”

Joshua’s face was red. He was always like that when he got hilariously mad. “What!? Are you insane!?”

“You have connections here. Get in my touch with the Index. I want to assemble a new crew. One that can take the licks.”

“Back up! Back up!” Joshua yelled at me. “You aren’t going to do shit! Not while you’re bunking with me. You aren’t going to blow things up like you always do!”

“Oh come on, you know I’m good for it.”

“What the fuck does that even mean!?” Joshua shook his head, pacing as he was about to boil over. “Oh, this is so you. You always fuck things up to eleven. Did you really have to make a last stand? Did you really have to choke out one of the Urban Defenders on the street? Couldn’t you just have waited to make a quick getaway? You made yourself a celebrity on purpose, didn’t you? Why is it always like this Seattle? Why do you keep blowing shit up!? Why can’t you just stay low for once!?”

“You know that’s not how I play.” I glowered at the tv.

“Well, how you play has got every CitySec officer on the street looking for your ass. And since you’re here, that means they’re looking for me as well. Fuck Seattle. You did everything to plant a big red bullseye on yourself, and for what?”

I looked up at him square in the eye. “I’m not going to live like a coward.”

A flash of real anger finally passed through Joshua’s eyes. I wasn’t trying to imply anything, but those words cut.

Joshua had spent his days building the mother of all safehouses. He lived underground behind three steel doors and a big ass turret that fired fifty caliber bullets. We were in an old subway tunnel turned into a living space. Electric lights were haphazardly strung across the concrete ceiling. There were sofas with the old subway rails as footrests. Wires and cables sprung out of pipes that were connected to the building above.

One of the walls was covered in computer monitors and screens and all get out, not that I understood much of it. From his cozy hiding spot, he had fingers in nearly all of the city’s digital infrastructure.

But he also never left his hole. I didn’t know whether the life he chose was worth living, but I knew it wasn’t for me.

“Fine.” I stood up from the couch, brushing myself down. “You want me gone? I’ll go. I’m a big kid. I can take the heat from CitySec, and then I’m going to get what I came here for.” I turned to head up the stairs. I made it up three steps before I heard Joshua call out behind me.

“Wait!” He shouted. “You won’t last five seconds out there.” I turned around and saw Joshua with his arms crossed, gritting his teeth. He stamped his foot twice as I saw him process a million thoughts a second.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Finally, he gave one last disgusted glance at me. “Was that really going to be your exit? After everything?”

“You know why this job was important to me. You know why I’m here in City 57. You know I can’t quit.”

Joshua rubbed his head like he was trying to squeeze out all the frustration. “Listen Vance, I know… But even before, you didn’t have a prayer’s chance of pulling a heist on the ASA headquarters. Let it go.”

My eyes fell to the floor. “I can’t.”

Joshua gave a long groan. But I knew he was going to help me, even if he complained all the way through. Because at the end of the day, he owed me one. “So what’s the plan here? You’re going to hire a bunch of street thugs? Take on the biggest and baddest people in City 57? Are you going to inject yourself with the enzyme? Was it meant for you?”

I cracked a smile. “You know me. I’ve never been suicidal.”

“So your plan was to have someone else die for you? I know class five superpowers are tempting, but…”

“I had a guy, but he got his head blown off. But hey, it’s City 57. There’s bound to be at least one crazy person who wants to burn it down.” I turned for the exit again. “But clocks ticking. You said it yourself. Joker probably has people to retrieve the enzyme. I need to get it before they do.”

“Fine, go. We’ll talk later, just make sure I don’t see your face on the cams.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I disappeared from the room. “I’ll be a ghost.”

…

As I invisibly jogged down the dark, evening streets of City 57, I saw they were still running my face on the giant billboards. It was actually pretty funny. The news calling me a New American Extremist gave me a chuckle. They were probably already typing up my manifesto. In truth, I wasn’t an extremist anything. That was just the background Joker gave me for the job.

Our plan had been a false flag attack on the ASA regional headquarters. Joker wanted it destroyed, and I needed something in the building. I thought that meant our goals aligned, but apparently he didn’t see it that way.

Don’t get me wrong. Seattle is my name, but it’s not because of some patriotic bullshit or whatever. We had these codenames my brother and I used while we were holing up in City 58. It was the kind of stupid shit kids make up. Anyways, after changing my identity so many times, Seattle was the one thing that stuck. And my brother was Phoenix.

Before I could go down memory lane, I stopped the images in my head. Remembering would only distract me now. Instead, I tried to focus on my surroundings. It’s interesting how free the world becomes when you’re invisible. We all live our lives by rules, where to go, what to say, who to do. Having invisibility meant I could step out of that for a few hours.

“The Ghost” was actually a good nickname for what it felt like. I had left the land of the living, and for once, I could breathe easy. It felt safe, like no one could touch me because they didn’t even know I existed. I wondered if that was what dead people actually felt like, to feel totally and completely safe.

I jogged right past the CitySec checkpoints, waving at them as I went by. It took no more than thirty minutes, and I stood in front of the apartment building where it all went down.

It had once been a luxury high-rise if you can believe it. Looters got their hands on it in the chaos after the bombs fell. Now it was just a dilapidated grey building among countless dilapidated grey buildings in City 57. Walking up the front steps, I took a look inside the lobby. The windows were all shattered, and the furniture was either gone, soiled, or broken. Everything had a coat of dirt on it, and the carpet was just nasty.

And that was what it looked like before. Now the whole area was littered with the aftermath of the battle. Bullet holes and scorch marks and chunks of rubble were strewn across the room.

I noticed several CitySec guards standing in the doorways and guarding the entrances. Drones buzzed around, but the whole operation looked fairly low security. They didn’t think I would be back.

I decided for another point of entry, and I strolled around the building to a nearby alleyway. There was a side entrance for food delivery, and the lock was busted. I crept up the steps and entered the hollow remains of a hotel kitchen. I left the door open to let the dim, evening light inside, and I walked through. Peeping out into a grungy hallway, I saw several more men standing around smoking and chatting.

I crouched down even though I was perfectly invisible. Maybe I was being too paranoid, but I was always worried for the day if my invisibility should switch off. I remember when I was a teenager. I was washing my hands when I first went invisible. It was so quick and sudden, freaked me out bad. Now, I didn’t want to be caught with my pants down if I turned visible right in front of CitySec. Besides, crouching made it easier to conceal noise.

I waved my invisible arm over my eyes a few times before continuing. I slowly made my way around the officers and into the carpeted hallway. The area was bad, but it wasn’t awful. I made it a rule never to base near the homeless again—and especially never a drug den. Once I nearly had my head blown off by a meth-head. He thought I was Abraham Lincoln back for revenge.

Finally, going a long ways down, I made it to the apartment. Thankfully, there weren’t any more guards nearby. Checking inside the living room and the two bedrooms, I saw that the CitySec confiscated everything. It was downright frustrating. The government was painstakingly slow in everything but taking your stuff. Well, there was no use crying about it.

I took out a crowbar and got to work. I had to do this slowly and carefully so as to not make a racket. Prying up the floorboards, I winced each time the wood cracked and split. I kept my ears open for footsteps down the hall, ready to bash my invisible crowbar against someone’s head if they decided to get too curious. It was tedious work, but I had soon pried open a hole. Below that was a gap containing a sleek metal box.

On the top was an indicator for temperature, and I verified that the refrigeration was still working properly. I breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was untouched. CitySec never knew what had been right under their feet. I grabbed the box and lifted it up. That was when I heard the wood creak behind me.

…

A homeless guy sprawled out on the floor below me. He had tried to come at me with a metal pipe, but I caught it and swung the metal box at his face. Bam. He dropped to the floor like a stone. He was still moving though, gotta give him some credit. His fingers shakily wiped away the blood where his forehead had split open. He looked up at me and stumbled to his knees. He was in between me and my exit, but that didn’t matter so much to me. I had him exactly where I wanted him.

“Today is just not your day, man,” I said, resting the metal pipe on his shoulder, keeping him down.

Homeless guy coughed. “How the fuck did you see me coming?”

“I didn’t. But you’re not the first one who’s tried to ambush me. How about you move over to the other room, and we can part ways.”

The vagrant took issue with that. He lunged at me, and I hit him with the pipe, swinging so I would hit his chin like a golf club. He dropped to the floor again, groaning in pain. I was surprised I didn’t dislocate his jaw. I was even more surprised when he got back up.

“Damn,” I said. “That’s two for two, and you still got some gas in ya. You got spirit, but I’m on the clock, and I would prefer you to get out of my way. So go to the corner, or I’ll hit you again.”

The vagrant spat out blood, and his face was messed up. I mean, it was messed up earlier, but I had done some damage. It actually made me feel bad.

This guy was in rough shape from a rough life. He had dark, gaunt eyes that made it look like he hadn’t slept in days. His face was dirty and bruised, and underneath the beard and all the scruff, I’m sure it was worse. But there was something soft and round in his features. He looked like a beat puppy—that was the best way I could put it.

“Come on, man.” I tapped him with the metal pipe. “It ain’t worth it. Just go to the corner.”

“I thought… it was interesting,” the vagrant muttered, half delirious in the pain. “I saw the floorboards being pried up by an invisible man. Why would the Ghost come back to his own crime scene?”

“That’s for me to know and you to forget. Come on.”

“Must’ve something pretty good in that box.” The homeless guy choked and gasped. “Listen, you seem like a reasonable guy. How about you give it to me, and I’ll let you go.”

I burst out chuckling, and I waved the metal pipe at him. “You’re a funny one. Now, please.” I pointed the metal pipe at the corner.

The homeless guy looked up at me, and I saw his eyes filled with rage, like a mad dog. His lips and teeth were red with blood, and he snarled. “No.”

I shook my head at this insane guy and tried to step around him. He grabbed my leg, and I swung the metal pipe on his shoulder as hard as I could. The homeless guy crumpled, but he still held on.

“Let go man, it isn’t worth it.”

“You think you know… you don’t know…” The vagrant gasped, spitting out more blood. “I’m done being fucked with. You! CitySec! This whole fucking city! I’m done! Gimme the box or kill me!” He yelled too loudly for my comfort, and I hit him again.

I pummeled the guy with the metal pipe, but he clung on like a madman. He was screaming and hollering as I laid into him. I beat him within an inch of life, and he still held on. Eventually, I had to stop. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him again. I know I’m not a good person, but even I have my limits.

The homeless guy breathed raggedly, and I knelt down to him, keeping my ears open for anyone who might’ve heard the racket.

“I can’t take it anymore. I-I can’t—” The man sobbed at my feet. “It’s not fair. It’s not…” He clung onto me as if I was his only hope, as if I was an angel and hadn’t beaten him bloody.

Look, I don’t know why I do the crazy things I do. But I know rage when I see it. I know that black pit of despair that just swallows you up from the inside. I know a broken man when I see one. And while I was planning on using the enzyme on myself, I knew someone else deserved that shot—to take all that hatred out.

Or maybe that was me rationalizing it. As I said, I don’t know why I do the things I do. But I couldn’t look at this man—this broken pile of skin and bones—and not see myself in him. I didn’t know anything about him, but I had been on the other side of that ass whooping. I had reality punch me in the gut and leave me crawling in a gutter.

And when you look up, there’s nothing like that hate that burns you inside.

I found myself setting the metal box down and dialing the combination. There was a hiss as multiple latches unlocked. The top flipped open, revealing a single blue syringe padded by white foam. I glanced up, knowing I was about to sign this poor guy’s death warrant. But hey, at least it would be one helluva way to go out.

Without another thought, I jammed it into his neck and pushed the plunger. The vagrant’s legs kicked as the enzyme went in him.

“Listen to me very carefully, in that dose is a sedative and a paralytic to boot. Don’t try to fight it. As for what’s gonna happen next, well… I don’t know if you want this. You can blame me all you want. You can try to come after me too, and there’s nothing I could do to stop you. But from now on, you’re on the clock.”

The vagrant tried to speak, but the enzyme was kicking in. He could only open and shut his mouth.

“Most you got is maybe a week left to live, and you don’t want to waste that time chasing a ghost. The good news is that you’re going to be able to do whatever you want. You may think I’m yanking your chain, but it’s true. Now, I’m not one to offer advice often, but I’m going to give you a little suggestion before you depart for dreamland.”

I looked him in the eye. “Remember the Democratic Union, and all they did to fuck you over. You keep that in mind.”

The homeless guy sputtered out some dribble, but the light was fading from his eyes fast. He slumped over and his breathing slowed. I stood up and brushed myself off.

Today had been a really bad day, but at least someone was going to wake up tomorrow with a better one.