A somulent shantung shawl of sherbet snow scuttled staidly across the spacious
stage onto which the shady stratosphere of heaven harked an assiduous ear. While the
bright light of unsullied sleet survived, the congesting cud of diaphoretic dirt and dust
which eternally encrusted the otherwise enviable environment like a black mortuary
sack over the ripped rigor mortis ridden relic of a rigid corpse at a concealed crime
scene stayed stashed beneath the steadily softening sheet. It was as if the egg timer of
history had been turned on its head rekindling a lost innocence society had deemed
unsuitable for its greedy escapade.
But others knew better; diseases cannot be cured by mummifying the
valetudinarian victim's mortal vessel in bacillus bated bandages. Only in attacking the
cause rather than the symptoms could a hearty healthiness be harvested like a gratifying
grain crop to a torpid third world peasantry. Iron; forever the inquisitive child, trilled
with hidden amazement at something not quite amazing; gazing upward as if the
heavens were in the process of opening up to belch out the glorious message of God.
Lincoln, in contrast felt uncomfortably like the uninterested adult; hovering aimlessly in
the background while her kid scampered around enjoying the wonders of a world he
didn't yet understand. "There's something warming about the power of nature; the way
it rips through socio-political boundaries; ignores our superficial domain and underlines
its falsity; reminds us of our unimportance."
"Um, not really" lied Iron; distracted by exactly what she had just alluded to and that he
hastily disagreed with. "Sure you do; the pale, icy absence of everything. The cosy
cover of comfit cold wrapped over the wrangling world like the magic cloak of a lofty
magician."
"Sleigh bells, pine trees; yeah, I know." he sidestepped the lissom language with the
skill of a quick whitted rugby winger. "Don't be so cynical. And anyway that was
yesterday," Lincoln was rarely an instinctive creature when it came to sentimental
notions. True; it was her real nature, but her brain had a horrible habit of labeling; of
sorting into file. Her mind's attempt to keep her house in order; to keep her sane; had
ironically been the catalyst of mental depravity. But sometimes she could let it go. The
fact that this ability was only occasional was her disadvantage. She envied Iron for
having a mind inquisitive and free; free from itself. But even her strict membranes could
take a break in vacation season, which revealed there was hope for her spirit yet. She
pondered whether this gift from above signified a greater meaning; whether it was
reward rather than a case of mere slight of hand by the ever presiding creature called
chance. Afterall, things only contain what the observer draws out of them. Pairs of
magpies don't set themselves down purposefully in front of those who are about to
experience a positive change in fortune. Fortunes are only gifted by the recipient’s own
mind. Coincidence is a funny thing not least because it tends to indicate some purpose.
Iron displayed more faith in divine intervention; "No; honestly. If God wants to sweep
all the muck of His world under the carpet that's fine with me;" he gathered a globulous
snowball and hurled it into a passing pickup's rear window to the driver's grumpy
displeasure; "if He wants to wave His magic mop and conceal the moribund mess
which admittedly we as a species created, I'm not one to contest His wishes. It's a
reminder of provenance; a kind of reward for trying, at least. It's God saying 'yeah, I'm
still here and I'm watching, so carry on the good work." Admittedly Iron could make
the non event of a tossed coin landing on heads rather than tails signify the word of the
lord almighty, but if that was what you got out of it, who's to say that wasn't exactly
what it was? "A kind of karmic effect, you mean; do good and good comes to you?"
With this, Lincoln surreptitiously rolled an icy wedge of snow from a caked windowsill
and bowled it at Iron as they walked; the latter having to utilize all his instinctive
evasion tactics to avoid a chilling mouthful of god's metaphoric sermon. "Yeah; if you
do a certain thing it'll yield a certain result. It's not just logical; it's scientific. The law of
cause and effect."
"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction."
They trudged on through the frosty spectacle like waddling penguins in an
implausibly fraudulent fast forward; each motioning to fumble together pillowy plumes
of inviolable ice and toss them toyingly at each other at itinerant intervals like a pair of
school kids bowing to the intrinsic inevitability of getting to the classroom with
previously glossy winter coats showered with patchy peltings of warbling white. Iron
indulged his philosophical and playful personas simultaneously like a cultured thespian
able to play Jeckyl and Hyde in unison for lack of shooting time. "If someone taps a
wall it makes a faint sound. If they thump it with a hammer it's likely to break. We'd be
either a bit worried or substantially unaware of our own strength if we tapped a wall
and it keeled over, and we'd be pretty disappointed if after all our efforts to fell the
thing with a weighty instrument it still stood. In this case laws that apply to the physical
world also apply to the moral one."
"Cause and effect?"
"Yeah; one thought sparks another and so on. Thoughts may invoke memory; hatred
may invoke bad ones;" seeing by Lincoln's momentary cessation of snowy retaliation,
he presumed he'd raised one such memory and offered the alternative; "happiness
invokes happy memory." This seemed to have done the trick; as he was nailed across
the face with a chilly projectile which he brushed off his coat like a bear relieving it's
sticky fur of the debris of an indulgent feast of honey. "Ethical predicaments manifest
themselves on both the physical and the mental level, so they can't escape karmic
retribution on either count." Lincoln imagined a time gone by while she spoke; a time
when the snow would not maintain its pure form so easily; when the streets would be
full of kids in clown colored woolens their mothers had insisted they unwillingly cloth
themselves in if only to ensure that embarrassment drove them back indoors before the
gnarly finger of jack frost. Nowadays, parents irresponsible enough to have had
children in the first place would have to barricade them in doors at the fear of the very
real prospect of them being murdered or otherwise accosted at play, which would have
not only subjugated their already atritious attitudes to human nature, but would have
made that nice clean sleet sheet as red as a biblical Nile. She shivered out of guilt rather
than cold; pessimism was the devil's hacksaw and she'd rather not have it contort her
person as if gutting a redwood from the inside out; "the problem is people think karma
limits our freedom, when really it's just a natural consequence of it. We can do what we
like; only we'll have to face our responsibility for the results."
"Like the wall thing; you'd expect to pay for it if it was someone else's wall you
demolished with the hammer."
"Er; yeah." The analogy just about sufficed; "it doesn't shock us when the thing comes
crumbling down. It shouldn't shock us when we have to pay for the effects of our
ethical decisions. But it's more than that. People think retribution will occur in a
coming life; that we'll be reborn as bugs or in poverty."
"Or maybe that we'll end up in Heaven or Hell."
"If that was the case we could blame all those who suffered like their agonies are of
their own design; we could refuse to donate to charities because those we're donating
to deserve all they get; the homeless, the disabled, the ill, the impoverished. This is a
gross misunderstanding of karma."
"It's all about psychology, right?"
"And personality. When we do good we feel good. Human beings know right from
wrong, deep down. Only delusion and mental ailments deny that instinctive recognition."
"When we do good we go some way to becoming a better person."
"And when we do evil it's vice versa. It's like an athlete training. You can not bother
and finish in the middle of the pack even if you have a good natural ability. You can eat
unhealthy food, lounge in front of the TV all day, come last and probably have a hernia.
Or you can train hard and come first. It's the same with karma. Do nothing and you
remain stagnant. Do wrong and you regress; you become bitter, resentful, arrogant;
nasty. Do good and you become secure; content with both yourself and the world
around you. That's the reward and the punishment. It's not dished out by some
judgmental divinity; you make it for yourself." Approaching a derelict cinema covered
with crooning layers of sinking snow which made the building look like a wavering
wedding cake, the two ostracized outlaws glided past a pair of pugnacious military
attaches as if they were translucent inventions of their disruptive minds; the issue in
hand far more appealing. "But what about karma and other lives?" Iron didn't
necessarily believe all this stuff, but then since he didn't necessarily disbelieve it either it
was probably worth considering. "OK so this life effects others, if such a thing as
reincarnation can be imagined. But not in that you'll end up a cockroach or a king.
Some animals enjoy a glorious communion with nature; they have no worries; no base
desires. They don't have to think about corruption; about society; about mortgages,
debts; work. Some have predators; some have to fight to survive. But some live in
sparse, untouched habitats at the top of the food chain. They don't even have to worry
about the past and the future; they can live in the now; enjoy the moment. Most people
don't have those luxuries, and kings can be especially disadvantaged in the spiritual
sense. If the objective of existence is transcendence, you're not going to do it just
because you've got a vault full of bullion; in fact that's likely to get in your way. How
you are in this life determines what personality you have in the next; how you respond
to your surroundings. Many crippled people have ingenious minds. People in poverty
realize what the important things in life are."
At this juncture, they were inconsiderately interrupted by a second pair of
militia men who had sneaked into a noose like ring around them along with the
previous couplet as if anticipating what would in actual fact be an unlikely lynching. As
a third and final duet joined the gathering like stock marketers around a telephone in an
ensuing depression, Iron and Lincoln were forced to concede that their philosophical
digression would have to regrettably be placed on hold.
"You two lost?" Troy Mehmo obviously equated excommunication from the
accepted echelons of an execrable society with geographical uncertainty. Given that the
surrounding territories bore little similarity to the way they looked before the
superfluous storm; which had effectively begotten what could be confused with an old
monochrome film scene; Mehmo's interference may have been considered an act of
compassion. He may simply have wished to escort a pair of confused travelers back
onto the by now invisible pilgrim's path they had been following. Typically, such
considerate notions failed to permeate the junta jabberwocky’s indelectable character.
Before Iron could deliver his usual comic criticism, the wolf whiskered Jim Nelson
interjected with a confirming diatribe pertaining to the unproprietous party's
intimidatory intentions; "This is private property; military exercises." Then the dollar
signs in his eyes lit up like an over generous slot machine as he remembered that these
two bore huge reward notices on their heads like giant Mexican sombreros. Iron
brushed a hand just above his head as if to wipe the metaphoric monstrosity away and
flicked out a leg like a taekwando exponent about to perform a prestigious breaking
demonstration, which in a manner of speaking he was.
Nelson squeezed a taut fist as if ringing a sponge and asserted his lack of
intelligence; "You got two f*ckin' options." If we were to take this comment literally,
writers of the Karma Sutra would have disagreed. Lincoln frowned dispairingly both at
the narrator's unfitting innuendo and the absence of imagination in the opposing camp's
scripts and recalled an old adage about excessive use of profanity indicating a
lamentable paucity in vocabulary as the deluge continued both from the sky and
Nelson's miscreant mouth, which seemed to indicate volume wise at least that it was
the latter edifice which was the larger; "You give up now or you get the sh*t kicked
outta you and spend the rest o' your lives in a cell." Having already experienced the
threatened predicament in earlier years which almost qualified as a previous existence,
Iron bit his nails in mocking fashion and turned to Lincoln like a moping mobster in a
thwarted heist suggesting a subtle getaway; "Sounds scary." The satire was entirely lost
on Nelson. As his crotchety companion's mouth motored on at such a pace that it was
in danger of breaking the light barrier thus requiring an astronomical catalogue of
scientific theory to be painstakingly rewritten, another of this charmless charm of
compunctuous troglodytes; Fei Lien; secretly drew a standard issue handgun and
winced in the scolding stare of electric billboards which edged through flaking piles of
snow like evil eyes out of a possessed painting in a humdrum haunted house.
Fei had been a top assassin for the Rightist cause in a war torn China. He was a
tortured soul ripped apart by a carnivorous history of his own creation. He had
inherited the family tradition of excelling in the hitman business from his father; a
legend in the ranks of the old Communist regime. He had always told him that the
tradition ran all the way back to imperial times, but then, Fei had never trusted his
father. He had angered the old man by opting to bat for the other side; joining the
revolutionary right; and ended up killing a number of former family friends. One terrible
day his masters ordered him to assassinate his own father. He agreed in principle but
couldn't face the hit when gazing into his eyes through a viewfinder. But his bosses had
prepared for this eventuality, and had enlisted the services of two counter assassins
who lurked in the shadows to rid the organization of the cowardly killer should he
develop a chilling case of cold feet. Fei set a crate load of explosives and escaped the
building; ridding himself of his own assassins but inadvertently completing the deed his
conscience had shied away from as he realized too late that his dad was still inside.
Guilt riddled and angry at the Rightist authorities, fate and particularly himself, he fled
the purges as the Communists emerged victorious in the civil war and ended up in the
US. With nothing but peanuts to be had there, his next stop was Manhattan, which
proved financially more fruitful, although specters of his past conspired to follow him
even there. A man cannot run from himself. He had never pursued a family life because
he had been brought up to believe that the sins of the father where passed onto the son
if he fails to conquer his own evil spirits. Furthermore, after such a sinful existence, he
had better enjoy as indulgent a life as possible since only the hells awaited when it all
finally came to a gritty end. But all this personal history was far from relevant to the
case in hand, since in a matter of moments Fei was to be cut down to a more fitting
size.
'Chaotic order; adopted by paranoid democracies and unstable dictatorships
alike.' Lincoln was still being subjected to Nelson's diaphanous tirade, so entertained
herself with unconnected musings. His meandering rantings provided the perfect
preoccupation for the others as she mathematically drafted a fight choreography with
which her apathetic adversaries would unknowingly comply. Toki Azamayo and Uttor
Damocles loitered in the background twirling baseball bats like majorette's batons as
the drone of lonesome refuse trucks maintaining a glum precession somewhere in the
gauze like jumble of roadways which clogged the city like a chunky plug wailed like a
gang of dicephalous banshees. Thanks to genetic reconstitution, the term recycling had
gained a much more profitable meaning. Comfortable in the inaugural blackness cast by
the dim shadow of the leaning cinema building, the last applicable antagonist; Gigi
Carboni; sucked a fusty cigarette and intended to be the last man standing by virtue of
never having to throw a punch.
A good leader must set and example, and though Nelson was surely not one of
those, he demonstrated just what he expected of his friends as his punch fell short only
to be kicked out of the air by the lightning fast Lincoln before his teeth were dutifully
kicked out of his head. Azamayo was next; he was cut down with a stalking sidekick as
the astatic assailant moved in like a pouncing cougar. Believing that standing behind his
opponent would ensure safety, Mehmo bit the fluffy ice too as Lincoln threw a similar
kick behind her which arced back to her side after making its indelible mark like a
retracting trombone. The conditions were proving unbearable for the outflanked
officials, who slid and stumbled even in gathering a garbled guard, let alone in being hit
like the jack in a bowls match played on a gleaming Antarctic slope.
Iron drifted in the distance as if an actor misplacing his lines and tried to control
himself amid approaching hysterics. "Nice to watch the thing like you're home in front
of the TV and it's all just fantasy." He watched the theatrical performance; a vital
character lingering off stage awaiting his cue and debating in his head whether or not he
was really needed here. While this internal debate continued, Lincoln crunched her foot
against the slushy ground like a charging bull and raised an undulating guard. Damocles
took up the implied challenge; swinging his lead laden bat in such a prolonged
preparation that she had ducked out of harms way before he had even cast out the
trunk like club. All this made the swiping roundhouse that followed an intricate
formality, which meant only two otiose squibs remained; and Carboni had to finish his
cigarette. Fei Lien crackled a set of tremulous teeth and readied himself to add further
penance to the karmic buildup of his family's murderous past. Lincoln baited him with
an off-putting glance to her right; a simple trick which he fell for like a mouse on a trap.
While distracted, he found a two footed jumping kick barrack him backwards as both
throttling feet struck; first to the chest then the face; which concluded the ailing
encounter as he and the feather bed of snowflakes became a tasteless fricassee.
Carboni sobbed exudingly in the tallowing tundra like a herbivore in a meat
market; he really didn't want to be here anymore, and was beginning to develop an
acute phobia for such extramural excursions. He dithered in tossing the fizzling
cigarette butt into an ungrateful gown of snow and imagined the sonorous ringing of
the first bell to indicate the initiation of hostilities he had been so single minded in
seeking to avoid; well aware that it would seem like a long and painful age until he
heard another. With that, Lincoln decided on the more direct approach; the
methodology of the hard grafting brawler as opposed to the eloquence of the stylized
technician. In truth, she could play either with consummate ease, although her character
was more suited to the latter. She had found that adaptability was a precious
commodity, and felt inclined to give a sound run out to each of the god given tactical
gifts at her disposal.
She threw a loose jab which was soon swallowed up by her opponent's high
guard, although this whimsical attack was meant merely as a duping gesture to enable
her to get up close. This suited the frowzy forlocked felon, who leaned towards the
slugger's mentality himself and estimated in no uncertain terms that with weight, size
and strength discrepancies to his opponent's detriment, the odds were stacked firmly in
his favor. Needless to say, the slight framed Lincoln knew better. Leaning into an
awkward stance with fists close to her forehead and almost touching those of her
adversary, she thought it only civil to make the first move; having done with the boxing
tradition of bobbing and weaving a little; transferring weight from back foot to front
and vice versa as she mimicked the process of sizing her opponent up. She realized that
to actually do so may well have raised doubts which only seldom encroached on her
battling lifestyle, and promptly jarred a right hook around his protecting hands which in
the event achieved nothing of the sort; and into a stubbly chin. The sensation reminded
him of some inattentive builder swinging around with a plank over his shoulder;
slamming the docile weapon into his jaw.
He blinked heavily like a mole exposed to sunlight and let his head rock to one
side. This one was decidedly stronger than she looked; a sentiment Lincoln herself
would have modestly appreciated. Afterall, power can also be contained in small
packages; good speed and technique can produce it just as well as brute force; the
added advantage being that the aforementioned talents allow a fighter to apply this
power more effectively than a wading banger. Drop a piano from two feet onto
somebody's head and it will do some serious damage. Drop a coin from fifteen stories
and it will do the same. But despite all this idle tactical speculation, only a split second
or so had passed since the initial punch had found its reluctant target, and Lincoln had
immediately followed up. Brawling is a dangerous pastime which serves to signify that
the best kind of street fight is a fleetingly short one. As if thumping at a stern tree with
a blunted ax, she swiped another right hook, a left, a left uppercut, back to the right
hooks; two this time in quick succession; a right uppercut, another pair of alternate
hooks and finally another right uppercut. Deceived like a whining toddler told by a
parent that good behavior would reward him with a succulent prize to relieve his sweet
tooth, Carboni had swiftly realized that he was unlikely to get the opportunity to throw
a shot here, which made the fact that he was being forced to take so many all the more
disturbing. In recollection, he had only calculated where the next punch was coming
from as it cracked his head either up or to the side, so evasion was quite simply not an
option. But with that last crunching blow came an odd experience akin to his head
being a pea in a matchbox shaken incessantly by a sadistic child. As soon as the fact
that he was no longer standing but in a worryingly recumbent state amid a silky bed of
princely permafrost came to mind, it had become clear to all in attendance that the
close combination had been enough to dispatch this born again pacifist in one fell
swoop.
With that untroubling chore completed, Lincoln brushed an eyebrow with a fist
which would have qualified as dainty if it had not just been proved so deadly. Given the
kind of existence she had in part chosen and otherwise been dealt, it was hardly worth
unclenching those hands baring in mind the probability that she would very soon have
to use them again. If she had lived in more refined times her skills may well have been
latent; perhaps she would not have had to learn them. "People have the ability to top
themselves; to jump off bridges; to sit in the middle of the highway awaiting the next
big jugernaught, but that doesn't mean they want to do it." Ability, however great; does
not always equate virtue. In the meantime, Iron returned to the fray like an impunctual
messiah to remind the hobbling Nelson why he had stayed down so long after he was
knocked to earth the first time. Raising a whisking wing chun guard, he stepped around
the forestalling flunkey like a gloomy crane and recapitulated his inadequacy with a
series of stinging strikes fit more for a speed bag than a real fight then altered his style
significantly; the vulnerable victim's trickling train of thought unable to recognize the
object of his approaching agony until he too was nestling in a sunken bed of scatty
snow. For the record, Iron held a striking knifefoot out at head height like one leg of a
compass for a few moments just so that the injured infidel still had a point of reference
if he had to put all this in a painful report to a superior and assumingly unimpressed
office.
Lincoln shook her head like a dispairing fan at her soccer team's lack of
finishing ability up front and dropped to a knee in the crumpling cotton wool just to
acknowledge his less than decisive contribution to the vainglorious victory as if about
to offer a maniacal marriage proposal which would have befitted the pair in its bizarre
and brutal setting. She closed her eyes with a hint of a mocking smirk and offered her
berretta to him handle up like an offering to a lazy warlike god; afterall, past events
indicated that she didn't require such an instrument of destruction. Iron thought about
pulling the weapon from her hands and putting a bullet through her head while she
voluntarily impaired her own vision, but only in macabre jest. "Yeah, all right; next
one's on me." This was excuse enough.
"Well;" Lincoln pointed a searching arm at the rudimentary wooden door which
adorned the dilapidated building from whence the floored officers of the law had come;
"you'd better lead the way." It was Lincoln's turn to take the back seat, which promised
a rejuvanative relief. Living life was like walking down a narrow corridor with the sole
intention of reaching the door at the end, regardless of how you got there and what
insufficiently desirable distractions attempted to thwart your progress on the way.
Naturally, other people with the same intention spend their lives walking the other way
down the same corridor. It just seemed to her that too many people were headed
straight for her and not enough walking with her. Perhaps she was going the wrong
way down a one way street.
Ambul Colburn raised a sirloin arm as if lifting a dibilitatingly heavy dumbbell
and kept a keen eye on the transaction being processed. In times of civil law and order
drug dealing was a risky business, but in times of despotism it required a particular
talent. Colburn was a professional bounty hunter; one of the few people to be 'shipped
in' to Manhattan specifically to do his job. As such, he had the added advantage of
being able to leave. He lit a drenched cigarette and enjoyed his assumed independence
as Gouki Amitaba scuffed dabs of dubious white powder which could not have been
mistaken for that which continued to float through the pale sky outside into a drum of
miniature plastic bags with the care of a brain surgeon but the nerves of a kitten in a
dog pound.
Amitaba and his group of temporary friends were government officers indulging
in a spot of moonlighting. The production of narcotics was strictly confined to official
channels; that way all the profit went to line Volscenzi's already gold trimmed pockets.
If he ever found out about this little venture, Amitaba and co would have to quickly
hone their sculling style, since in no time they would find themselves dropped into the
Hudson with concrete blocks for shoes. Obviously, selling to legitimate consumers
would be suicide since any narcotic of low quality would immediately be traced back to
the impertinent producer's movie turned crack house. Colburn was the key; he was a
free agent, and this opened up a huge market. The beleaguered street urchins of
Brooklyn craved their daily fix, and had developed a palate for at least three star
merchandise. This was a taste Amitaba and his mob could satisfy. His enterprise would
produce the goods and Colburn would smuggle them over the border. Trust would not
suffice to bring him back with the earnings, but the thought of a bigger catchment next
time around most certainly would.
Emmanuel Ropa; the brains of the operation if such a thing could be imagined;
leaned his bandage bonded broken nose out of the door in case legitimate government
patrols were on the prowl only to have it cranked back into a painful squash with a
stout fist and an osseous crack. The remainder of Iron's body predictably followed the
fist, which caused all but the pneumonia cool Colburn to leap like disturbed hyenas off
a semi devoured carcass.
Ropa recognized this audacious outlaw straight away; he was the one who
broke into the Times Square outhouse and earned him an unwanted demotion, not to
mention a throbbing proboscis. Lincoln sneaked in unnoticed behind her more animated
companion, who immediately read the situation at hand and waved a chiding finger;
"Oooh; drug dealing, huh?" Ropa conveniently forgot the agonizing history he
associated with this cumbersome character and wallowed in unconvincing
complacency; "'Man's gotta make his money." By this Iron was visibly perplexed; he'd
never made a dime his whole life, but that was more down to circumstance than
preference or ability. "I'm sure your boss would appreciate knowing about your mini
cartel;" It wasn't as if turning informant would be the first thing on Iron's mind if he was
to rub noses with the villainous vizier again; "In actual fact, I'd rather avoid lending him
a helping hand by closing you guys down..." But that half baked sentiment was never
going to deter his defense as Ropa zoomed in like a diving aircraft to put the record
straight; after all, he could no longer do the same with that nose. Iron leapt with almost
incidental ease and cut the curt charge short with a rigid sidekick to the jaw. Ropa
swiveled on one heel for a moment like a spinning nickel before collapsing heads down.
Hakan Soeler was next on the invisible list; falling foul to a curling hook kick which
dumped his head into a thick glass pop corn dispenser which he wished had been full in
order to cushion the impact.
Displaying octagol vision, he took hold of Jubei Jarrett's petruding collar
despite the fact that the shocked subject approached craftily from behind and nailed a
short heel into his undercarriage before looping his ataxed body over a choleric clutch
of carpeted stairs with a sinuous shoulder throw which would not have looked out of
place in a judo competition if the opposing competitor had offered some sort of
resistance. CJ Alder's arm was caught like a dizzy butterfly in a marmalade jar before an
inescapable roundhouse to the back of the leg humbled him into a kneeling position.
Another to the head accosted him with a biting astigmatism and as the assailant
swapped the hand which had facilitated the arm hold and a concluding inside out hook
kick with the another part of the same foot bumped him into a slalom like droop down
another set of steps as a forester would do his namesake.
Lincoln superstitiously avoided getting involved. One of her ancestors had had
a deadly passion for theater, but thankfully history was unlikely to repeat itself due not
only to the more modern nature of the kind of stage show which used to be 'performed'
here by a mass of unseen and unpresent actors, directors and money men who were
probably long dead anyway, but also because she was far too elusive a target to fall at
the feet of a creeping assassin. Iron made a baseball bat his own as a wily block turned
into a consummate snatch, and Liu Sokutsu cursed himself for bringing the thing into
this unexpected warzone when he should have been plotting a way to avoid being
struck in the nose with its asture hilt. Iron discarded the unsporting implement like the
burger box by a street slob and bounced feet first off a wall to allow the dumbstruck
Carlo Cajoli to collide with it like a crash test dummy; honestly never realizing the thing
was there. Colburn spat gratuitously like a compulsive cobra and waved the shuddering
Amitaba out of his hutch like hiding place behind the tidly ticket kiosk where he could
conspire to conceal whatever he was pretending he wasn't concealing. In this case, the
guilty object was a scabby shotgun which he had brought along not to deter potential
invaders but as an insurance policy against backstabbing compadres. Iron swatted him
aside with a spinning backfist which was mildly foreseeable to Colburn, who snaked
past the undelectable drug pusher as he flipped uncontrollably backwards over an
ancient polygonal poster for some aimless action flick. Ropa; although by now he felt
as if he had spent the last week sleeping in a coffin lined with needles, had convinced
himself there was some curse on him; a 'kick me' sign written in an ink only the most
dangerous of street vigilantes could see. This time he egged a weary leg over a
cylindrical trash can with the help of a slinky banister, but felt the as yet uninflicted pain
prematurely as his brain decreed that a caught leg may as well be a broken skull, and
released the relevant chemical reactions automatically. But with luck, Iron simply threw
the leg back at the reverse angle to that which it had been carelessly emitted from;
placing Ropa into a backward spin. However, with a little less fortune, when the spin
was completed and he was left facing the rioting revolutionary for a second time, a
propounding backick was waiting. This was a less than inviting invitation for Colburn;
who tumbled into the line of fire with a stoking prod of a punch which Iron blocked
with an inverse slap before churning out a trio of extroverted sidefist strikes which
jutted out at intangible angles and landed squarely on his chin, solar plexus and ribs
convulsively.
Colburn covered his arching midsection as if caressing a blanket in the dead of
night, but could be forgiven for thinking that his muscular forearms had turned to a
fluidic jelly as somehow his opponent shot a simple straight punch through the minimal
gap between them and into his ribcage; utilizing the fact that in comparison his own fist
and wrist were almost emaciatedly slight, and could thus fit through the hole with a
little skill like placing the cue ball behind the black despite the presence of a spread
cluster of colors in a rack of pool. Doubled over, Colburn should have seen the rising
knee to the lip coming, but in finishing the encounter off with an exuberant backward
somersault which connected heel first as he flipped over and back onto frolicing feet,
Iron added an artistic tint to what was by his lofty standards an otherwise uninteresting
exchange.
Lincoln clapped provokingly and suddenly had a sobering thought; "if violence
is a sin I suppose I'll pay for my many violations in a future life if not before then." Iron
shrugged like a Cossack learning of the demise of an unknown Bolshevik; forever
inclined to live in the now and relieved by the assurance that this encounter had come
to a satisfying end.
Thunder boomed like a table groaning under a vast weight. Lightning exploded
with ceaseless electrical fury like an overheating plate of tinfoil in a microwave. The
resistant window wavered and bucked at its adversary's merciless bombing raid like an
old fashioned knight protecting his king with a cast iron shield against the ferocious
onslaught of the mandatory fire breathing dragon. Lincoln; safe from the storm and
feeling peace and protection all around her, sat in front of an obscure blaze of
subliminal illustrations; flicking through channel after channel with the TV remote and
not finding anything of sufficient interest to warrant even a second glance. Alice
twiddled her thumbs as if queuing for a dour Disneyland ride and debated to herself
why at her tender age she had to work for a non existent living.
She had been helping Chen and her parents relocate the ousted hospice which
she used to call home, and since in between removals duties the odd tactical avoidance
of military patrols was necessary, it had been a tiring day. Eventually conceding defeat
on the TV front, Lincoln flicked the 'off' button and the world around her seemed to
flop exhaustibly into a dignified relief. She tossed the remote aside, sat back and
listened to the rain; which clearly provided superior entertainment. Having missed out
on childhood herself, she was unsure of how to entertain an eleven year old. As the
screen faded into wonderful hues of blankness, she turned and shrugged at her
temporary flatmate; "TV is one of those unsurpressable industries that each and every
regime wants to support. The possibilities are endless; misinformation, propaganda or
just plain old advertising. Even if there was a nuclear holocaust, I'm sure you could get
up in the morning, switch on the TV and hear about it there first. But despite all this,
the media tycoons still produce little to interest anyone but their own fat pay packets."
"TV rots your brain." Alice would have been a genius by school standards had such
institutions still existed. Unfortunately the alternative; military academies and security
training schools, were not an ideal choice for the mentally gifted yet physically
challenged. The two sat in silence for a few moments; rain swirling anywhere and
everywhere like an old testament flood. "I love the rain; it reminds me of home..."
Lincoln's comment was nothing but instinctive, wasn't really directed at anyone, and
trailed off into obscurity obediently like your name on a public health service waiting
list. "What home?" Alice thought she was at home; how can you be reminded of home
if you're already there? "No; I mean my real home." This only confused Alice further.
"Where's that?" Lincoln tried to elaborate; nobody had really ever asked her to share
the strange goings on of her warped mind with anyone sane. "The way I see it, there's a
world where we should be and a world where we shouldn't." This made Alice think,
but thinking is a far cry from understanding. "There's a natural state of mind; but
humankind has rejected it; an uncomplicated place;" Lincoln sat up to try and get the
rusty cogs in her head to revolve more efficiently, but ended up hovering between
insignificance and wisdom as usual; "all these buildings, roads; this city; it's not real.
There's something beyond that; something we've lost; you know; our freedom." Alice
was half way to understanding but half way away from it. She supposed to some a half
full cup is half empty. As a kid in Manhattan, she had never known 'freedom'. To her it
was some distorted myth that her parents mused about. In fact, she was often hidden
away from government officials, tax collectors, salesmen, doctors; she only ever left the
house when her parents deemed it absolutely necessary, and apparently all this was to
'preserve her freedom', which seemed a contradictory measure. Perhaps she simply
couldn't comprehend the complexities of politics and ideology just yet. "Anyway,"
Lincoln lingered in the constant harmony of being engrossed in the downpour.
"Sometimes, it comes back to tell us we're not alone." Alice had lost herself;
"What
tells us we're not alone?"
"Freedom; the soul. Everything that means something rather than simply is in a material
sense. The marvelous mystery of life." Lincoln smiled with a mild acceptance of reality.
Alice understood mysteries; but only in as much as she understood very little.
One little mystery she carried around with her was the indelible silver line on the
underside of her arm; stretching from palm to elbow. It was almost too thin to measure,
and appeared only in certain concentrations of light, which made it even more of a
mystery. If she had been born a decade and a half earlier when the country was to all
intents and purposes a democracy, she may have believed that she had been abducted
by aliens some time in the past and this was the scar from their inhuman medical
experiments. But under this regime, there were always more sinister possibilities. At least if aliens
were responsible, humanity was not, which was some small comfort on the nature of
the species. But she knew all too well that little green, gray or globular men,
indeterminable beings from parallel dimensions or even giant space insects were not to
blame. That scar had been there since she had spent a week in hospital at the age of six
with an indiscriminate rash which appeared only to grow worse while she sat there
uncomfortably on a rock hard mattress. Not knowing hospital procedures, she had
taken certain radioactive tests without complaint. It was all to repel diseases, she was
told, and afterall, these were the experts. But she swore she had less recollection of
those procedures than she should, and aside from the obvious suspicion, she was simply
not sure whether that hairline mark had appeared before or after that particular visit.
Even so, her parents and everyone else she had consequently met bore much the same
mark, so there really was no reason to believe it was anything other than part of the
anatomy of a human being. Except the fact that here were two people; Iron and
Lincoln; who were free of this particular mystery, which was why her mind brought it
up now.
"You're bugged, right?" Alice almost jumped; it wasn't often someone said
exactly what she was thinking. Then again, it wasn't often she spoke to anybody
outside her highly protective family at all. "Bugged?" Was all she could manage. Wasn't
that what she was running away from the other yesterday? "That little thing line across
your wrist; they call them pulses;" Lincoln dutifully began to elaborate; "it's like a
monitoring device; though by the look of it it's a pretty basic model; probably doesn't
work at all anymore." Alice had already realized this was why her parents had hidden
her away but she had never considered that she had already been bugged. "....it keeps
track of everyone; limits their freedom. I think it works a bit like a bar code, but with a
locator built in. State of the art in its time, and an original invention of the boss himself.
They were developed originally to keep tabs on livestock in prairie areas out west, but
our well loved premier saw more local uses for the technology. Being a self declared
wacko, I was in the mental institute when the surgeons first went searching the city for
candidates. At the time, there was a plan to execute mental patients; they were no good
to anyone. But the government hit an economic depression and they simply closed us
down. By that time bugs had been planted on the majority of the consumer class and
they assumed the patients wouldn't last long without their doctors. Actually, a few
people I knew in there got the prototype models. They were the ones who didn't
survive long."
"So when those medics were after me, they wanted to replace the old one, right?"
"Fair bet. But from what I've heard those things go straight into the brain now; you'd
have had one stapled onto your neural pathways; it's more efficient. People can lop off
arms if the promise of freedom is great enough, but you can't very well do without a
fundamental hunk of your brain in place; I'd know. The first batch; like yours; shorted
out years back. Now it's just a useless tattoo I'd imagine. Maybe if this government
ever falls you can travel the world showing it to people as a party piece; 'look; I used to
live in a dictatorship'." This at least was a welcome relief.
"How do they work?" Lincoln's technological expertise was hardly legendary, but she'd
always have a go; "It just omits a signal that special computers can pick up, but in your
case it's really more a question of how come it doesn't work. When it's given certain types of
radioactive treatment at certain levels the micro technology fails, or used to in the initial
stages of the bug's development, but don't ask me why, I'm not a scientist. Actually,
you have to wonder why they still use pulses at all with all their DNA filtering; perhaps
they fit little cameras in those things too; just to keep tabs on a more visual level. When
a child's in the womb, they give it an injection of bacteria which kills of all the genes
responsible for certain sorts of behavior and multiplies the others. It's a sick method of
control; makes everyone obedient, but it's not working properly yet, that's why there
aren't many young kids in the city, and I suppose that's also why they persist with the
pulses. You were probably lucky in a strange sense of the word. I guess the failing; and
the good thing about; the old method is that it only lets the government know about
everything you do; it doesn't decide how you think." Alice would have been disturbed
by this if she wasn't used to such goings on, and as long as you were you; she thought;
you were in touch with the valuable things in a rather sterile existence. For a kid she'd
had a nasty time of it thus far, but had adapted remarkably well; like a tiger forced to
spend it's otherwise free roaming life in a two square metre cage.
The thunderstorm ignited again and bright white light flooded the room once
more; an unrequested but welcome guest. The sudden crash of color jerked Alice's
mind back into wakefulness. "Sarah?" Lincoln tapped the floor with a foot in time with
the raindrops and concentrated on two things at once; "Yep?" Lumbered with this
ordacious ordeal called existence, as if it was a contracted illness promoting angst and
ecstasy in equal measure, she allowed her mind to rest in the rain while her brain
carried it's messages to and fro like a well tailored butler. The optimistic storm eased
her and gave her a feeling nothing else ever did; shelter from the storm; from someone
or something greater than this contingent world. Alice also appreciated the easing
relaxation but didn't know of the possibility of separating brain and mind. "But you two
are going to stop all that; DNA control; pulses and everything, right?" Alice possessed
that fantastical notion that one person could change; or save; the world. That sheer
willpower could make things happen in a real sense. "Er; hopefully." Lincoln laughed;
remembering this was now a two pronged front against the atrocious authorities, which
made her forget her responsibilities for a second; a brief rest bite, but a helpful one. She
felt like a rejected apostle whose jesuitical biography had failed to make the pages of
the greatest selling book in history. Alice may well have made up some kind of scant
fan base, but her existence could hardly be termed a hagiocogy; she was very far from
either saint or savior. Her scripted mission in life was an impractical one; unworkable.
But wasn't it the travel not the destination that was important? Iron; at least;
understood her- something she had perhaps never had before. 'Deprived minds must
really think alike' she thought; consciousness of this existence dashing away with ever
passing breath as if the rain was busily washing it so. She often felt she knew what he
was thinking; feeling what he thought and felt; like twins do. "Maybe when the
everyday bits of your brain get damaged, it responds by opening up those areas people
can't usually use."
Alice felt sympathy for her newfound friend; though she came across as a wise
character, she also appeared somehow cheated by life; not only had she never known
such a vital aspect of this mysterious existence as social peace, but she had probably
lost the faculty to recognize it even if she could experience it. She had been trapped;
both mentally and physically; in this unfortunate place; unable to leave. Unable to
escape something she so deeply despaired about. She didn't know if more wonderful
things existed beyond the place in which she was of either necessity or unbreakable
habit remained. She could not even conceive of anything else; blitzed with anguish in a
restricted world which she could sometimes see through, but never escape. Then again,
Alice had lived a similar life. She supposed she still had time to loose her mind. Lincoln
saw herself as a sparklingly ordinary heroine if she really had to be seen in that role.
She was aware that Alice looked up to her; not in terms of in loco parentis, but as some
kind of figurehead which she definitively was not. Such characters don't have flaws.
Such characters tend to succeed. She was not convinced that such a directionless
revolution could possibly be successful. By now Alice had realized that her own
philosophizing had been far too deep for an eleven year old, and an instinctive
mechanism in her brain had concluded she should act her age and leave the thinking for
another time; preferably not the foreseeable future. As she drifted into the easeful
nothingness of sleep, she wondered if it was worse to see something and not be able to
take it, or not to see it at all.
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