James turned left onto the side street; it looked a little familiar. The traffic moved slowly; the road was filled with luxury cars similar to his, except for the logo featuring the stylized “C”. Grey-suited gentlemen filled the sidewalk on both sides, with only a few long-legged female secretaries among them, their business-formal clothes casting their curves in sharp relief.
He heard the roar of an engine growing louder, the noise punctuated by several screams. A car suddenly appeared on the sidewalk to his right, driving at high speed, mowing down pedestrians. The handful that survived leaped to their feet, pulled out pistols, and fired wildly at the driver, continuing until he was out of sight. They then put their guns away and continued walking calmly, as if nothing had happened, even ignoring their fallen cadres. James looked around for any ambulances, but saw none approach.
The car returned; James could see it before hearing the engine. It was now driving on the other side of the street, down the sidewalk, mowing down pedestrians indiscriminately. None of the victims turned to fire at the car before being run over; only the few spared thought to do that, well after the fact. James noted glumly that there were far fewer survivors this time. As the car drove out of sight, the gray-suited men put away their firearms and, in an unsettling replay, ignored the bodies scattered on the ground, not even walking around them.
Finally, he saw the payphone; as expected, it was ringing. He pulled over, got out, and picked up the handset; he heard a familiar dignified, nasal voice.
“The gray markers will always point to the nearest Consolidated Inc. phones where jobs may be found for those with sufficient respect,” he heard. “Tell your friends! Consolidated Inc. is interested in offering contract work to anyone prepared to keep the Karnie population to a minimum.” The line went dead. He hung up the phone; it began ringing immediately. Picking it up again, it repeated the same message he had just heard, then went dead. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he placed the handset in its cradle and returned to his car. Closing the door, he finally couldn’t hear the phone ring. He was grateful for the silence.
James took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Respect? That meant slaughtering Karnies, didn’t it? That’s what the other driver was doing, driving down each sidewalk–he was gaining respect with the Odesa. Why was life so cheap? Why did Alan prefer to be here? And what, he noted with a shudder, was he prepared to do to stay? James wondered again what the jails were like here, and whether his career was really that bad after all.
Feeling like he was running on automatic, he turned his car around and drove away. As he passed the earlier scene of carnage, he noted there were no bodies to be seen; the sidewalks were now littered with chalk outlines. Swallowing hard, he left the Consolidated Inc. area and turned right onto the wide boulevard. The yellow arrow pointed northwest, blithely showing him where he’d find his victims. His stomach twisted into a knot as the amusement park became visible in the distance. Before long, he saw scattered Karnies walking on the street, with plenty of other pedestrians mixed in. No, he thought; he didn’t want to kill innocent people. Better to get closer to the amusement park, to minimize the needless death.
He felt numb as the towering rollercoasters grew closer; the sidewalks were now thick with Karnies. He thought about an older cousin of his, Philip, who barely graduated high school and now worked as a low-level technician in a nuclear power plant. He recalled the family discussion about the dangers he was risking, and Philip’s sanguine response: “I’ll put up with a little radiation, if it means I can get a job.” James remembered feeling aghast at Philips blasé conclusion; was a job really worth that? He supposed context was everything, for now he was ready to massacre people he didn’t even know, not to get a job, but just for the chance to get one.
James approached the amusement park, then circled around an adjacent block. There were plenty of Karnies here, but not as many as there were at the edge of their compound; he would have a better chance of surviving if he simply looped here. He returned to the boulevard, driving away for about a block, then with a stitch forming in his side, he turned his car around and lined it up with the street corner. He watched the Karnies walk to and fro, oblivious to any danger.
He took a deep breath and gunned the motor; his car hurled toward the throng. He felt a surge of adrenaline, bringing all he saw into sharp focus. His bumper collided with the first body; quickly, it sank underneath with a scream, hardly making a bump as he drove over it. This was followed in quick succession by other deaths; he mowed down a handful of non-Karnie pedestrians along with his targets. Feeling sick to his stomach, he rounded the corner at high speed and continued down the next sidewalk.
The amusement park was to his left; the Karnies there began firing at him. He heard large booms, followed by crackling sounds; the Karnies had sawed-off shotguns. The pellets impacted with the side of his car and left long scratches across his hood and windshield. Trying not to think about what he was doing, he crushed several more Karnies under his wheels, then turned right, grateful to not be near the amusement park anymore.
He felt calm and still inside as he drove down the third sidewalk, Karnies falling before him like stalks of wheat before a thresher. A few Karnies on the other side of the street tried to fire at him, but too late to do any good; his car’s rear end was lightly peppered with buckshot, but no great harm was done.
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As he prepared to turn down the fourth sidewalk, he saw his Consolidated Inc. respect-meter move one position in the positive; simultaneously, the Karnie respect-meter dropped one detent. Was one position enough to get a job? Did he really want to find out it wasn’t, and have to come back here? As bad as this was, he didn’t want to have to do it again. Gunning the engine, he drove down the fourth sidewalk and watched the bodies disappear under his car, numb to the significance of the images flashing before his eyes.
He turned right, preparing to drive down the first sidewalk again. Somehow, it was fully populated with Karnies again. All the better for me, he thought as he continued his atrocity. But how to get avoid getting shot after he turned the next corner? The Karnies near the amusement park would just cut him to shreds again. But…they wouldn’t if he continued to drive straight, denying them the chance to flank him. He felt a twinge of amazement at how cold and calculating he had become, but nothing was going to divert him from his task.
He floored the gas pedal, shot through the intersection, and T-boned an unsuspecting Karnie pickup truck, sending it flying. It spun across the road and impacted with the outer wall of the amusement park, crushing several Karnies as it did. James paid them no mind as he raced forward, down the other sidewalk, even thicker with Karnies than the four he had already cleared. Their screams blurred together into a single percussive noise as he continued to barrel through the forest of flailing limbs.
In the corner of his eye, he saw the respect-meter move again. Was two positions from neutral enough to get a job? He had to risk it; some glimmer of humanity in him told him this needed to stop. He jerked the wheel left, sending his car spinning; some judicious pumping of the brakes later, and he managed to arrest his slide. He gunned the motor again, intending to get out of there as soon as he could.
He had no choice but to pass by some Karnies; they fired at him. His car began to shudder, and his rear axle emitted loud clunking sounds; the Karnies were giving as good as they got. One particularly loud shotgun blast startled him; immediately, the rear of his car caught fire. He was out of time; he had no choice but to bail. He jumped out and tried to roll; to his surprise, he ended up with only a few bruises and scrapes. His uncle’s beloved luxury car, however, careened out of control, drove onto the sidewalk, hit a light standard, and exploded, flattening another dozen Karnies.
James found himself standing in the street; he saw several Karnies preparing to shoot at him. In a flash, he pulled out his Uzi and, firing in bursts, managed to bring most of them down before they could fire. He suffered a few buck-shot wounds, but they hurt a lot less than he had expected. He slowly noticed a vehicle approaching him; it was a rustbucket Karnie pickup truck. He saw two Karnies inside, murderous rage written all over their faces.
Acting on instincts he didn’t know he had, he ran up to the driver’s side window and fired; both Karnies slumped over. Opening the door, he threw the driver onto the pavement, then jumped in and drove off. A few shotgun blasts hit the truck, mostly the rear, but didn’t cause serious damage. He floored the gas pedal; the ramshackle motor came to life as well as it could, rattling like an angry sewing machine.
A police car, driving the other way, suddenly flipped on its lights and sirens, made a skidding U-turn, and gave chase. James finally noticed he had a single glowing police-badge near the top of his vision; he was now wanted by the authorities! He dodged slower-moving traffic as he watched the police car grow nearer. He realized, with no small amount of irony, that a little radiation didn’t sound too bad at the moment.
Resolutely, he decided there was only one way out. Driving with all of his meager ability, he threaded his way through the traffic, keeping an eye on the gray arrow. He bruised several fenders of other cars, but still managed to race forward. The cop car followed, but collided with far more cars in its attempt to pursue. Finally, it fell back, struggling to get ahead, but trailing ever further behind. James kept up the aggressive driving, spotting gaps between cars that he could exploit, mentally predicting when new holes would open up, and managed to stay ahead. The police car was no longer anywhere to be seen.
Moments later, he noticed the glowing police badge in his vision had disappeared. He reared back with a start; had they simply given up? Shouldn’t they have radioed ahead, to be on the lookout for him? Would they look for him in the future? Would his face now be posted in every precinct in the city? Was gross vehicular manslaughter not a serious crime if the victims were mostly gang members? He had no answers, only questions. All he knew was that, at the moment, he was no longer in danger. James breathed a sigh of relief, slowed down, and leisurely continued down the boulevard.
He idly glanced at his cash total in the upper-left corner of his vision. James was startled to notice it now read $780. Hadn’t he only had $20 a few minutes before? How did he earn money? Was he paid for running down pedestrians and blowing up cars? He shook his head and pondered the bizarre implications; not only was gross vehicular manslaughter not really a crime here, but he got paid for it too. The implications staggered him as he continued driving down the boulevard, finally turning left onto the side street that took him to the Consolidated Inc. payphone.
That’s when he noticed there was a dead Karnie slumped over in the passenger seat.
He felt another jolt of adrenaline, the last in his meager reservoir. Not knowing what to do, he continued to drive to the payphone, stopping in front of it. After parking, he opened the passenger door, letting the body fall to the concrete. Bizarrely, the Karnie stood up once, then collapsed to the ground. The gray-suited men in the area cheered, and James noticed his Consolidated Inc. respect-meter climb another tick, for a total of three. Unsurprisingly, his Karnie respect-meter had fallen by an equivalent amount.
He fell against the hood of his pickup truck, out of breath; there he rested for a minute or two, waiting for his heart to stop pounding and for sweat to stop flooding out of him. All the while, the gray-suited men continued to walk by, seemingly uninterested in his presence. Finally, he regained his composure, stood up, straightened out his clothing, and approached the incessantly ringing payphone.