Wally Delmont Okenter was a certified nut case. And I’m not exaggerating here, he was responsible for creating part of the artificial intelligence that automatically selects and tracks the human population for removal. Wally and several other wacko computer engineers helped the companies to basically kill all the humans. Why? Because they could do it––that’s the reason, nothing else. So,while since being a Sweeper isn’t exactly having humanity love you for any of that, being one of those guys was just as (if not more) evil incarnate.

Now, as I’ve gotten to know him over the years, I found out why he was slightly insane and morally inept. You see, Wally had a few mental breakdowns during his tenure at those high profile universities and tech institutes. Does that excuse him from turning on his own kind? Not really, but, it explained a lot of why and how he became like this. You see, geniuses always tend to have these pivotal moments of utter insanity when creating such monumental projects. So, when he broke down (yet again), the NCCEA sent him to their rehabilitation centre, performed a lobotomy on the troublesome spot in his brain, gave him immunity (for a bit longer than most) and left him to rot on Earth. Nice…

So now, here I am, standing his his overly crowed shop of “recovered” belongings of the dead. The fat fucker stands behind me with a shining weapon and a weird smile on his face.

“Did you eat all that coleslaw yourself?” He said to me while holding the gun to the back of my head.

“No,’ I said, trying not to shit my pants in that moment. “This isn’t mine. I found it, minus the coleslaw. But, if you’re that hungry, I can give you his address, you can scurry over there and scarf it up.”

“Har-har-har…” He snickered, like a child scoffing at a parent telling lame joke. “The Saunders Palace? Right?”

“Yep…” I nodded. “So, you going to blow me away, or are you just going to stand there masterbating behind me with one free hand?”

He seemed confused at my meaning, but then gave a look of realization as he lowered the gun. He giggled slightly, clicking the back hammer back and forth, and rubbed the tip of the gun on his greasy hair as if to scratch a nagging itch.

“Ah, sorry bout that, man. I just wanted to freak you out, a little. But, check out this sweet find,” He waved it at me. “It’s got no bullets, but it’s in one piece! Chandra brought this in a few hours ago. I swear that girl is getting the best ones.”

“Chandra was here?” I turned around gawking at him. “You mean she had another removal, already?”

“Oh yeah,” He nodded, taking the gun and moving behind the wooden counter. “She’s been bringing in a ton of sweet shit. I mean, this gun for one, and some five-fifty stabilizers for a twenty-two model Tesla… I mean the twenty-second century model, not anything in the twenty-first, right? Those are still all up on the moon and mars. Classics those are. But those hover stabilizers there,” He pointed at them on the shelves to the right. “We’re talking priceless on this planet.”

I’d almost forgotten about his attempt to kill me, or at least, the attempt to scare me. No, really, I wasn’t scared. I didn’t crap my pants, okay? I just got worried, that’s all.

“Chandra, shit I knew she was getting the good ones…” I said bopping my fist on the counter lightly.

Chandra Hassini was to me as Moriarty was to Sherlock Holmes. That woman had the damnest luck when getting choice removals. Her numbers were high, like around ninety-two thousand. Mine was only up to eighty. Wow, now that I think about it, I’ve done over eighty-thousand removals. That’s incredible, and… slightly depressing, as I dwell on that thought. That’s a lot of life to snuff out of existence.

“Wooo… what is this?”

Wally’s cooing roused me out of my thought. He pulled out the weird looking card from the coleslaw container and eyed it like a kid opening his Christmas gift. I wanted to snatch it out his hands, but those chubby digits weren’t clean enough for me to even try. I just leaned on the counter and glared at him.

“I was assigned to my last removal’s home to retrieve this… I think. It’s not a bit-card… at least, not one I’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s a new generation of one?”

“Yeah, Earth only has so many left.” He agreed. “New ones aren’t ever issued here. But, they wouldn’t even make it here. No, this looks way more advanced.” He examined it with his fingers, bringing to his thick-lensed glasses to study up close, and then, he let out a long gasp. “Holy shit…”

“What?” I shrugged.

“This… uh… this is an Oasis pass.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No, dude, I’m being honest here.”

He fumbled with it in his hands as he continued to feel the card. The look of amazement never left his face.

“Jesus… I mean… wow, I’ve only seen one in my lifetime.”

I finally got the courage to snatch it from him and studied it myself.

“How can you tell?”

“The markings on the edge,” He pointed to the area on it. “Very hard to spot. It has the logo etched into it. That’s for the Spire of Oasis, what you’ve got there my friend, is a one way ticket off this dump heap.”

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“Holy shit, indeed…” I said, glancing back at him.

The Spire of Oasis, for those of you just joining us, is the incredibly tall and massive structure sticking out of the centre of Davencore City. It goes all the way to into space, to the very curvature of the Earth. At the top of that impressive structure is Oasis One, the greatest and wealthiest place for those waiting to move to Mars. If you are one of the chosen few, you get to live up there (all expenses paid), and wait your turn on the next flight to Mars. This is only given to the wealthy and the few elite Sweepers who make the quota numbers of removals. A golden ticket to a new and better life.

Even when I started as a Sweeper, I was told of the few that did make it to the top. It’s the dream of all of us to achieve this level of status. The drive to complete what we do and get the hell out of here. And now, now here’s the card in the palm of my hand. But, there’s only one problem… the spire, which is a massive elevator by the way, won’t just let anyone on, it has to be coded to your specific genome and have a file detailing the complete history of that owner of it. The smile that was on my face, quickly diminished like failing erection. I handed Wally the card and sighed.

“The good it does any of us.” I said. “It’s worthless without the owner.”

“Hey…” He said to me, giving me a comforting pat on the shoulder. My somber attitude seemed to concern him greatly. “Cheer up, buddy. This is a good thing. You’ve just found your way off of here.”

“What are you talking about?” I pulled away from him. “That’s a dead card. It can’t be used without the specific code, you know that! Fuck man! What’s the point to all this shit!”

I started to pace around, waving my arms up and sobbing like some low douchebag. I’d never done something like this before. I don’t know what came over me. The promise of freedom probably jolted my brain and activated something I thought was long buried underneath. Funny how a little flat plastic card can do that to you. Wally watched me with increasing concern. A look he rarely gave anyone, especially when I bitched on about something. He waddled around the counter and stopped me in my whimpering tantrum. He held up the card and gazed at me.

“Jack… this is your ticket, understand? I’m going to fix it for you.”

“Wh-wh-what?” I snorted, trying to hold back the tears and regain my dignity (what little I had left).

“Yeah, Man! I’m going to help you!”

At first, I thought it was a streak of kindness that came to him like an epiphany, but, no… that wasn’t it. The lobotomy might have changed his personality, but again, that wasn’t it either. It was the fact that he saw an opportunity to do some A-level hacking again. I could see it in his eyes. His mind was reeling from what he could do, how he could modify and re-engineer this card. It was a challenge for him, and that (in his mind) was exactly he had been waiting for. The more he smiled at me, the more strange and disturbing it became. He gave a queer giggle, eyeing the card with a burning passion. Honestly, I thought he was going to shove it down his pants and get off on it.

“Why would you want to help me?” I said, breaking that awkward moment. “I’m a low life asshole, just like you… uh… no offence intended.”

“None taken,” he dismissed lightly. He returned to small stool behind the counter and plopped his chubby ass onto it. “Look, I’ll be honest, you are a scum-wad and the most undeserving shit to ever be granted such a privilege. The ghosts of your victims would probably rather you rot for all eternity in this hell, then see you live and prosper.” I blinked, not sure what to say in that moment, so, just nodded and allowed him to continue. He tapped the card on the table for a second and looked up at me again. “But, Jack… you’re a damn good friend to me. More so than any other I’ve known. You don’t try to smooch my ass about what I give you, money wise, and you tend to talk to me like regular human being.”

“Regular?” I cocked a brow at him.

“See!” He smirked, pointing the card as if were his finger. “That’s what I’m talking about. No filter on you. Just giving it to me man to man, as it were. Fuck bro, I love ya, you son of a bitch.”

“Please, I don’t swing that way…”

He laughed at my quick wit and placed the card down. He folded his lumpy arms over his mound of a stomach and twirled slightly on the stool. The creaking it made was almost like the seat begging for him to stop. He chortled for a moment, wiped his nose and happily glared at me.

“I’m going to help you get off this turd, dude. Not because I think you deserve it, but because… well, shit… I want to see if you’ll actually make it.”

And there it is. The real reason he wanted me to go. Not for friendship, like he tried to sell me, but as his guinea pig. Nobody on this hard world ever does anything out of “the goodness of their heart”. This world is cruel, cesspool of scavenging monsters looking to tend to their own agendas. But, being one of those, I accepted it nonetheless. I gave a wry smile at him, then looked at the card.

“If I make it, huh?” I said, looking at it, then at him, then on the card again. “You know, I could still get this if and when I finish my quota.”

“Oh fuck!” He laughed. “You ain’t ever going to finish that. Come on, let’s get real… and whose to say that they,” he pointed upwards, as if addressing the almighty, “will ever allow you to leave this place.”

“But, I heard of others that…”

“Wow, you can’t be that dumb.” He blinked at me. “Dude, there’s only been one guy––one, ya got me? That actually made it there. That’s only because his removal rating was at a mere hundred.”

“How do you know?”

“I know, okay…” He said wiggling his sweaty fat ass on the seat again. “I was there when they tested the system out. I don’t remember too much about it… since the… uh… you know.” He pointed at his head and motioned to the spot they took out. “But, I remember enough that he only had to do so many and then got the promise of the good life up there. I guess it was a form of compensation for being the test subject for it.”

“One is better than none.” I stated.

“You Sweepers are all the same.” He laughed again. “Those bastards really did a number on you all. Holy fuck, man. They’re gearing up for something major, I’m telling you. This sort of game of taking out the unworthy is only going to last so long. There’s going to be a time when they want to get rid of all of us. We’re a strain on the system. We might be the forgotten and the weak, but they won’t let us stay here rent free forever.”

He had a point, I had to admit. The numbers were starting to climb fast. The few remaining cities on Earth were emptying out, and there would only be so much time left for any of this. I gave a slight nod and shrugged my shoulders.

“So, you think you can do this?”

“Fuckin’ A, buddy boy…” He grinned. “Just leave it to me, I’ll crack this puppy in no time.”

“Are you sure you can?” I curiously glared at him. “With your disability and all?”

“They took out some of what I can do.” He swivelled back and forth again. “I can’t really build new tech or remember if I shit in the closet or on the toilet, but I still have the ability to do some fancy reprogramming.”

“Alright then,” I said, with a firm slap to the counter. “I’ll take those odds. I’ll see you in a few and get an update.”

We shook hands, his sweaty and mine clammy from nervousness about it all, and I turned to leave his junkyard of a shop. Before headed out of the door, I turned back and called to him again.

“Oh, and Wally? Thanks for the heads up, by the way.” He looked at me with confusion. I snickered and pointed vaguely to the back. “I think I finally know what that smell is, you defiantly did it in the closet.”

He gave me a smile and waved his middle finger.