enjoy!
Levels II
I am on fire.
I try to open my eyes but the light… is strong, so strong,
so very painful. It burns my eyes even through the closed lids. I wait. I turn
away, open my eyes and see the concrete. I am close, so close, I can see the
dirt on the surface. I can see the concrete itself crumbling, the specs
illuminated by the light. I take comfort in the closeness of the grey, the
feeling of containment. I squint, chance turning back to the light, but it
still burns so bright. It is orange, on fire, like nothing I have ever seen
before. It burns even thought I turn away. I miss the cool dead lights inside,
the dull blue glow, a feeble light cast off by excited elemental gasses. I miss
the cool light bouncing off walls, so close you can touch them, light so close…
I miss the inside.
I am outside. On the out side of where I live. I am lit with
the fire of the brightest light I have ever seen, at its mercy. I can feel the
heat. And feel the wind. The wind picks up as the light burns a deeper shade of
orange. Is it diming, it is becoming less terrible to behold? I turn, slightly.
The light still painful, but the pain is less. I look up, grey blue streaked
with brilliant colors, oranges, pinks, reds, purples and yellows. The sky
itself is on fire. It is immense and awesome. Terrifying.
I hold my hand up to block the light, to allow my eyes to
travel freely across the horizon. From end to end it is on fire, yet getting
less by the second. After a moment the light itself fades from view and only
the fire-lit sky is left. My eyes are grateful for the absence of the light and
they search frantically in front of me. I look for a path, a street, perhaps a
tunnel.
But the only thing that lay in front of me is deep, endless
sky and the yawning abyss. I open my mouth to scream but the wind takes my
voice.
“Tal! Tal!” Talbot Singh hears a voice and frantic knocking.
Momentarily he panics, afraid he will fall, but then he opens his eyes. He can
barely see the walls that surround him, dim light slipping into cracks. He is
confined and he relaxes. He is safely
enclosed in a cabinet at the back of a small electronics store inside a large
mall on level 29. He slides open the small door and is friend, Kerr, shakes
him, a smile on his face.
“Wake up man! Dreams again eh? You were screaming, drove
away the last customer.”
“Sorry.” Tal mumbles and carefully pulls himself up and out,
onto the floor, out of the cabinet he has been calling his bed for the past
month. “What time is it?”
“Time for you to get another place man. It’s nineteen
hundred.”
“Ungh. We still on for tonight?”
“Sure. But you may want to find a shower first, you reek.
Gonna have to fumigate this place when you leave.”
“Won’t be long now.”
“You said that two weeks ago. Never mind. Go get a shower,
the bath houses close pretty soon. Me and the guy will meet you at the club
then?”
“Sure.” Talbot stood up, rubbing
his hair. “Sure.”
Several hours later, Talbot walked into a club that managed
to be overly bright and drenched in shadows at the same time. Loud music
throbbed to a full house. The celling was a comforting height, low and close
enough to touch, bodies, lights and walls all confined Talbot. He felt safe. He
had spent the last six weeks hiding out in the back of Kerr’s small electronics
shop, which was tucked in the back of a large mall of shops in the center of
the Assembly, the section of level 29 where Talbot had been born and raised. He
had worked as an Assist, a sort of lawyer/fixer who helped people in the
neighborhood whenever they had to deal with the state or the Protocol.
Two months ago he had a client end up killed in his small
jewelry shop. As Talbot unraveled the case he found himself drawn into a much
larger case. He had discovered that the Client, Mr. Mill, had been involved
with kidnapping young university women. He would hand them off to an agent who
would then, with the help of a Doctor on an upper level, reprogram the girls.
The girls were then entered into a space program that sent them to Mars, a one
way ticket. Although the bounty for finding people “willing” to go to Mars was
generous, Talbot had not figured out why a group of people from the upper
levels would bother dealing with a small number of people, surely there was a
greater profit to be made from other, equally unsavory businesses?
His work on the case had put him in contact with one of the
more notorious gangs from lower level, the Treasure gang. One of the higher up
in Treasure, Geertz, had used Talbot to find out about the kidnaping ring and
to also get a hold of the Doctor. Treasure did see both profit and reason to
take people and program them to make them acceptable for the Mars program. The
main difference is that Treasure was able to find many willing volunteers from
the lower levels. Most lower level inhabitants however, did not qualify for the
space program. Now that Treasure had the Doctor, they could make lower level
people fit the bill for the program, a win set for all.
But Treasure was a minor concern compared to the thread that
Talbot had pulled right before everything unraveled. He had followed a woman,
Aria Olsen, up to her meeting with an upper level politician. She ended up
killing the guy, but then ended up dead herself. Talbot knew that the
conspiracy went up to much higher levels still. And that it must involve a much
large conspiracy. He was worried about what the truly powerful might be able to
do to him, should they discover his part.
Talbot had gotten Treasure to fake his death, allowing him
to disappear. He had spent the last six weeks laying low. Most of it spent in
Kerr’s shop, and most of that time spent sleeping in the tiny cubby hole in the
back. Sleeping wasn’t really the word for it.
Most of the time he would doze off, only to wake up from nightmares. He
lost track of time, he had not spoken to his parents in weeks, fearful of
getting them involved. He had not been outside the mall on over a month.
Kerr was right, Talbot thought, he did need to get out.
He just wasn’t sure this club was what he needed. The audio
and visual assault would be too much for most people, but it was overwhelming
after his isolation for so long.
He carefully made his way around the edge of the club’s
large dance floor, finally finding Kerr and some others crowded into a small
booth. The booth offered some privacy but no escape from the music. Talbot
nodded as the four in the booth all yelled a hello at him. All he saw was their
mouths moving. Kerr got up and let Talbot slide in. Talbot smiled, thankful
that Kerr understood without asking his need to hide a little. Talbot felt very
exposed despite the club’s deep shadows.
They had not been there twenty minutes when a petite girl,
or was it a boy, came up. Talbot had
several drinks in his system and his vision was blurring, he looked at the person
standing in front of their table and squinted. Kerr waived the waif away.
“Where’s Alexa!? She’s our waitress!” He screamed at the
clubber. They rolled their eyes and thrust out their hand, a small white note
in it. Kerr reached out to grab it but it was withdrawn. The creature shook
their head and pointed to Talbot, who visibly shrank, his eyes suddenly clear
as adrenaline shot into his system. They thrust their hand out again and Talbot
took the paper, his hand shaking.
In the dim light he looked at it, it was an envelope, no
writing on it. He carefully opened the end and pulled out an all-black transit
card. Color visibly drained from his face.
“I have to go!” he screamed at Kerr.
“I’ll come too” Kerr responded, but Talbot held up his hand
and shook his head. He slipped out as Kerr got up, again putting his hand up to
stop Kerr’s protestations.
Rather than the welcoming feeling he had when he walked in,
the rough, harsh music and the persistent beat seemed to push him out of the
club, onto the street in front. Three large men in dark suits stood across the
way, under an office building’s overhang. Talbot briefly thought about making a
run for it, but decided it would be suicide. Shaking like a leaf he walked
across the street. He had his hands out of his pockets, down at his side, palms
flat out.
“Easy going guys, no trouble here.”
“Neither we.” The largest of the three grunted. “Mr. Geertz
says to follow us.”
“Well, uh, you see guys, I’m sort of in the middle of
chatting up a nice-“
“Mr. Geertz says to bring you back. Any ideas on how we do
that?” The same man said, his voice low, even.
Talbot shook his head.
“I can go maybe then, with you. Uh… lead the way.”
“That’s a good way.” The man grunted and he took off, the
other two discreetly falling in behind Talbot.
Talbot panic almost lost control as they made their way down
the mostly empty streets. As they walked along he began to recognize where they
were headed. They were going to Jensen’s neighborhood. Jensen was one of Geertz’s
hired goon, nothing good had ever come out of visiting the wholly disagreeable
man.
“I thought we were going to see Geertz?” He asked, his voice
cracking. The three men did not respond.
A minute later they ended up at the door to Jensen’s small
street level apartment building. They went in and up to Jesen’s floor. Talbot
was surprised to see April, Geertz’s assistant, in the hall. She made only brief
eye contact and almost imperceptibly shook her head.
The door to the flat was open, Talbot felt himself being
pushed in, he stumbled and blinked. At the far wall was Geertz, standing over
the prone body of Jensen. 3
“Singh. What’s your connection to this?” Talbot blinked some
more, feeling disoriented because of the drinks, because of Geertz, because a
man who had been nothing but evil to him was now dead, his limbs akimbo. Talbot
glanced quickly around, the apartment had been trashed.
“My connection?” Talbot managed after several beats.
“This your work?” Geertz said, his tone even. Talbot tried
to clear his mind. What was Geertz’s game? Did he really think that Talbot had
done this? Geertz always had the answers, was already a step ahead. Was he
really in the dark?
“Don’t pretend with me Singh. If you did this I can’t help
you. Just because you’re legally dead doesn’t mean you can’t die again.”
“How... why do you think it was me? Come on…” Talbot said,
his mind still swimming to the surface, trying desperately to break the water.
“He was not exactly your friend Mr. Singh.”
“I swear, it wasn’t me…”
“Then who?!” Geertz raised his voice.
“I- I don’t know…”
“Tell me who Singh!”
Talbot looked around, his face a mask of puzzlement and
fear. “But , I don’t know!”
“You’re not listening Singh! Tell me who did this! Tell me
or your end will be slow and painful.”
“But, I don’t.. .“ Talbot shook his head. “Ok, ok, I get it.”
Talbot swallowed hard; he really wished Geertz had just said he wanted to hire
him. He knelt to look at the prone form of Jensen in closer detail. The body
was already somewhat stiff, he had been dead for several hours. There was no
pool of blood, no obvious wounds. He had not been stabbed nor had he been shot.
Jensen was young, but Talbot supposed he could have just up and died. Then he noticed the arms, both arms covered in
deep red scratches. He recalled the last time he had visited. He sniffed the
air, a faint trace was still there.
“Drugs.” Talbot said, standing back up slowly, aware that he
might fall over, his head still thick.
“Drugs?”
“Last time I was here… months ago mind you, but last time,
he was using some sort of drug. It had a smell. Do you smell that still? I don’t
know what it is, and, believe me I didn’t ask.”
Geertz looked around, opened a drawer, then another. Then,
looked up at a high shelf above the bed in the corner. A small box sat there. Talbot
saw it too and went over to pull it down. Inside was empty, but the smell was
strong. Talbot looked up, a question on his face.
“Migdahl. The mig. Tightly controlled, we don’t deal it.”
“Why not?” Talbot asked, surprised that there was anything
that the Treasure would steer clear of. Geertz just smirked and kicked at Jesen’s
arms.
“Super addictive stuff” Talbot turned to see April in the
doorway. “total crap high, but cheap, a little goes a long way. But yeah,
cannot be kicked. You need a bounce every five, six hours. Kind of surprised he
was out. Must have been terrible way to go, looks like he literally tried to
peel his own skin off.”
“Why would he be out?” Talbot asked, almost to himself. “And
if he was out, why not go out and get
more?”
“It happens Singh, it’s what kills mig junkies most of the
time, they forget, they lose track, their fixer isn’t around, a few hours
later, dead.”
“So go to the Medkit and get a patch-“”There are none Tal.”
April said softly. “No fix, no cure.”
“Sounds like a perfect product” Talbot mumbled. Geertz’s
head snapped up.”Mr. Singh, we’re not animals… plus, the drug is cheap, tightly
controlled and you need to be around the customer all the time. Too much of a
hassle.”
Talbot looked around again and shook his head. “The place
has been hit. Someone was looking for something, held him up, trying to get
answers. May have even known he was on this stuff and used that against him.”
“Or,” April said “He tore up the joint looking for more
stuff.”
Talbot shook his head, not convinced, then he smailed.
“Ok, so, Mr Geertz, if not you, who?”
”Excuse me?”
“He’d been on this stuff for a while, I saw him last about 6
weeks ago, right.”
“If you say so…”
“Yes, so, maybe he got some someplace else, but six weeks
supply, at least, probably more…” Talbot trailed off and gave Geertz a
meaningful look. Geertz’s face clouded over.
“Find me who killed this man Singh, who is behind this. I am
not asking, I am telling you to do this. April will help you.”
“Me?!”
“Yes, you. If another gang is around here we need to know.”.
“And if it is not a gang?” Talbot said, the answer already
in his head by the time he asked the question.
“Then we are all going to die. You have the card Mr. Singh,
go deep. Do not call me until you have an answer. “
