The Wake Up Call

TAD

Chapter 1.28: Fate

The densely packed buildings of the NewPort Colosseum cast a threatening shadow over both Hetch and Splice as they approached its vast rows of gates. Trade transport from all over the city used this immense structure as both a refuelling station and cargo off-load point. Over many decades the sprawling arteries of service tunnels, trading rest areas, shopping malls and cheap, short-term accommodation has doubled in size every 5 or so years. The once impressive building now only forms the underlying supports for a much larger structure. The fact that a medium severity earthquake could flatten the entire mound into a steaming pile of ash and twisted rumble has not affected its incredible ability to attract the construction of even larger scale extensions to it.

The often ignored computerised warnings about air quality are real enough, the building was simply too vast to control it, so rather than spend countless millions the daily inhabitants were issued emergency masks fitted with twenty minutes of oxygen. In fact some regular traders went further and outfitted themselves with bio-engineered lung implants. These bulky, internal devices recycle up to 30 percent oxygen as the person exhales, storing it in miles of microscopic tubes. This operation wasn't without a great deal of risk, but for some the risk of losing a deal outweighs their own physical well being. For other 'low grade' individuals there were the heavily vandalised oxygen stations placed at various points throughout the labyrinth of rooms, dead-ends and tunnels. Once a siren was activated you literally have a few minutes to find a working mask and place it over your face then pray that the service technicians remembered to refill it since the last time it was used.

The original Colosseum was meant to be a monument to all the cultural achievements of man over nature, defying gravity and other crazy, ego-induced self-congratulations. But sadly, like it's original designers and inhabitants they have been replaced with cutthroat trade. Beyond the acres of smog coated entrance tunnels lies greed and all of the savage acts that it attracts. Money is the sole reason that the NewPort Colosseum exists. It provides the means for corrupt businessmen to employ contract killers and indulge in every manner of espionage and insider trading. The real players operate far beyond these parasitic, concrete walls from the likes of the Milton Citadel. This place is nothing more than a vacuum, sucking credits in from every form of legal and black market commerce.

The likes of Mewco frequently siphoned off millions of credits by high-jacking some unsuspecting loading dock freight engineers, some drivers and their transport before leaving them unconscious in some sleazy bar. Sex, drugs and violence, 'The three keys to the corrupt kingdom', or so Mewco used to call them can buy you anything, including a bloody death amongst these unforgiving walls. Mercenaries were often used as protection against rival couriers and hit squads. Although bombings were rare in such busy places as this, they did happen, and with devastating results.

Hetch kept a steady distance from Splice who led the way through this hectic meeting place. It was a simple means of protecting each other. Every so often they switched places, one taking the front and scouting ahead while the other watched their back. Pickpockets and religious preachers all congregated in public places like these. So did small time traders all wanting to peddle their various wares to the millions of visitors each day. It had been said that everything and everyone could be bought in places like these and looking around Hetch entirely believed this to be true. Slave traders and pimps to city officials and law enforcers all frequented the NewPort Colosseum at one time or another.

Lines of commuters nervously scanned each approaching figure with fear and suspicion. The vast scale of the place made it impossible to cover every corner with security cameras. Apart from some ghetto zones this is the worse part of the city. Stabbing are a fact of high-mortality life here. On average over a dozen people each and every day suffer a fatal knife wound. Years ago a trial security system from the Uni-Ware Corporation was partly installed. It remains the only real means of protection inside this overwhelming termite's nest of activity.

The need to commute through the darker areas has come about by the disintegration of genetic anti-discrimination laws. Now the struggle for the latest implant technology fuelled with credit psychosis have split the city's population into two unequal halves. Those with bio-enhancements act as the lawmakers and high-powered officials they control everything and everyone else. The slum areas now house those unfortunate enough to be born with a non-perfect DNA sequence. Character flaws, once magnified by the pressure of 'futuronics' (the prediction of death using DNA material), have become one of the biggest factors for suicides, enhancement surgery and resentment.

Scratch below the vile underbelly and you will find segregation. Laws fall idle while corporations act as greedy gods, feeding off the human livestock forced to work extreme hours in toxic refineries, radioactive reprocessing factories and as living donors to quell their needs for bio-material to harvest for the upgrades of the elites.

"Yo, watch it brother!" screamed a short, thin cult member clutching a digital bible in one hand and a metal staff in the other.

Hetch scanned the religious man before him. His clothes bore out the marks of spending years in a toxic refinery. Spillages had cut holes through every layer of clothing. Once protective gloves were now used as a fashion accessory, covered in chrome symbols and fibre-optic wires. The face of the man was weak, his skin was ash coloured and tuffs of dyed green hair cut into sharp points framed its sickly surface. His eyes were hidden beneath some light sensitive reflective glasses. The nose was far too wide for the man's face and his eyebrows replaced with badly drawn tattoos. His arms were wrapped in heavy chrome armour like his legs. From his belt hung an incredible collection of tools, gadgets and dead rodents skeletons.

"I fear ye not, oh incarnation of the damned!" he preaching touching Hetch on the forehead, closing his eyes and tilting his thin head up towards the ceiling.

"Out of the way!" complained Hetch. Splice had merged into the crowds some way in front and he feared getting lost in this gigantic man-made maze.

"Cast off this mortal body brother and be reborn into the heavenly palace of the true God."

With each step Hetch was blocked, the man was clearly determined to finish his speech whether Hetch wanted to listen or not.

"Look man, just step to one side and let me through."

The packed population of this junction of trade and crime smudged the edges of this building. No matter how quickly Hetch searched the teaming streams of people he failed to spot anyone looking like Splice. The cutting lines of pods mixed with heavy cargo freight barges added to his increasing sense of panic.

"You can not outrun your fate."

The man pushed Hetch back with the side of his metal staff. The smell of spent fuel and cheap narcotics tumbled their staggering path through the air. The twenty-year-old ventilation systems barely managed to produce enough oxygen to feed its dependants inside.

"I've no time for this, 'end of the world' bullshit!"

"Wait!"

But Hetch had already sidestepped into an approaching line of workers coming in the opposite direction and he managed to avoid the preacher's grasp.

"You can run but you can't hide from your fate!"

"Yeah, right. I know where my fate is heading." he muttered under his breath and tapped the large pistol under his armoured coat.

"I have looked into your eyes. I know the pain you carry." continued the preacher, brandishing the staff in the air and beating his rag-covered chest with his other fist.

"The locker!"

Hetch froze in his track. The streams of traders and buyers pushed their way past him, catching his shoulder every so often to remind him that he was in their way.

"She knows the truth. You cannot run from your past. Your fate will come in the shape of an almighty gift. Greed will be your mistress. Corruption and violence surrounds you!"

Hetch felt his side tear. The preacher's word became as sharp as his metal staff. His lungs cried out for oxygen. Sweat began to pour down his face and the human termite mound of people swirled around before his defocused eyes.

"You see!" screamed the preachers to everyone within earshot. "See how the non-believing soul is crushed under foot "like a foul demon from hell sent to ensnare us?"

Hetch dropped to his knees. Each breath was an uphill struggle as the preacher made his dramatic path towards him.

"Can there be any other answer? My words have tore into his very being. He is a killer!"

Clutching his chest like an injured animal Hetch looked up at the highly animated features of the man.

"Now." said the preacher, grabbing Hetch's head in one of his hands. The long, bones of each finger dug into Hetch's skull. "He searches. Yes, greed is in these eyes before me. Cast out this plague brother before it is too late. You can't undo was has been done. You cannot go back. You search for a key, a reason to understand the impossible. Your quest for shiny metal will end in death. Open your heart to the power of the divine God, or so help me, I will slay you now."

Hetch reached into his coat and fumbled inside searching for the pistol. Eventually it fell onto the rough floor and spiralled around before the feet of the preacher.

"There, proof of his intentions. Which poor, innocent creature were you intending to murder?"

The preacher drove the point of the staff into Hetch's newly patched side. The fresh scars cried out with red tears from his ribcage. He moaned out in pain.

"Let me expunge your torment. She will not come back. Surrender your life to me. I am your road to salvation."

The tight grip around Hetch's throat caused him to hallucinate as his oxygen-starved brain struggled to prolong its owner's life. The preacher's talon-like fingers drove around the base of the throat and forced the Adam's apple back into the windpipe of Hetch.

"* BANG! *"

The preacher's head fell to one side and his grip weakened as the muffled sound of a gunshot died down.

"Fuck Fate!" cursed Splice, holding the pocket of his coat up behind the dying preacher. Smoke seeped out the pocket's opening as he watched the preacher's body slide down the staff and land face down on the hard tarmac.

"Gees, can't leave you alone for 5 minutes." he said, lifting Hetch onto his feet and pushing a mask over his face.

"Take some deep breaths. Looks like you had a bad reaction to the pain relief drugs. Lucky I picked this thing up on the way in."

Hetch nodded and held the mask in place over his face. Splice picked up the pistol and pulled his fatigued accomplice towards a long stall near the elevators. He scanned around no one reacted to the death. The overwhelming sights, smells and sounds of the NewPort Colosseum had concealed the murder.

Hetch looked back. It could have so easily been him lying back there in a pool of his own blood as thousands of people fought their way past, not knowing or not caring about this sudden act of violence. This death, like so many events, troubled him. The 'dog eat dog' mentality of the underworld was still an unfamiliar one to Hetch. Once again he had to be grateful to Splice for saving his life.

"Take a few of these, they will take the edge off."

Hetch held out his open hand and accepted the unknown pill capsules. With a bit of discomfort from his bruised neck he forced down the pills.

"Now?"

"We sneak inside the cargo elevator over there and search the loading bays for a freight barge, or anything else which is heading towards the Milton Citadel."

A little time passed and they were both squatting inside the back of a large freight transporter. It's interior filled with crates and dim fluorescent light from tiny channels along its full length.

Hetch cast an eye over his longhaired partner. The skin bore out the results from a lifetime of drug abuse and chemical accidents. His features were old and drained, sucked almost dry of life from countless hours spent in badly lit or hazardous environments. The knowledge in it's blighted container was broad, so too was it's ability to help. It must have been him who supplied the dud armbands to the McKaffs after hiding the case. The jumping motion of the barge caused Hetch to turn his attention back to the preacher.

"You hear anything he said?"

"Who?"

Hetch tilted his head towards the back of the barge and out towards the NewPort Colosseum tunnels which they were still travelling through.

"Oh, him? Some garbage about death, end of the world, the usual religious crap about being the chosen one of God. Right?" Splice gulped back a mouthful of whiskey from his pocket flask and rested his feet on a locked toolbox.

"Something like that but some of what he said made sense. He knew too much."

"Told you your future? Some crap about fate?"

"Yeah."

"Look kido, his cult has been around the Colosseum as long as rats have lived in its sewers."

"He mentioned about..." Hetch stopped himself.

"Lets check the news once we get to the Milton Citadel."

"How did he know?"

"Take all this mind-reading voodoo crap with a pinch of salt. Its nothing more then mirrors and smoke. A cheap trick developed to suck the bank accounts dry of their credits. They convince someone that they can read minds, tell people their futures, but only if they donate their entire fortunes over to their cult."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Same as you kido, revenge, pay-back, call it what you want. Those 3 bastards have sold everyone out. Mewco had rules. He was a sleazy, weasel but you could always count on him when the shit hit the fan."

"I guess."

"Where do you think most of the traders back there got their wares from? He supplied most of the merchandise along with protection squads. He's still got some contacts around the city. Some of them will help us."

"What about the cops?"

"What about them? If we take down the McKaffs they will forget about us. Think of it as performing a public service for the city."

"Those mercenary contacts, any news?"

Splice sighed and took another mouthful of whiskey before replying.

"Nah, sorry kido."

Splice looked through a small gap in the freight barge's doors.

"Looks like another few miles and we'll be there."

Hetch unloaded, checked the ammo in the magazine before pushing the pistol back into his coat.

"You heard the name Josh Weller?"

"Sounds familiar. Something to do with the stewardess?"

"Carena Davis."

"What?"

"Her name. You mean she never told you it?"

"No." Hetch's mind thought of her and their first meeting in the shuttle. Her name must have been there in front of him the entire time on her security badge and he hadn't even noticed it.

"Josh Weller is a name from her past."

"That’s it! It was on the data recorder in her locker. I knew I had heard that name before."

"We're going to pay him a little visit with the case."

"So it's somewhere in the Milton Citadel?"

Splice shook his head.

"Right under your nose"

He looked around. There under Splice's feet was the locked toolbar.

"Bingo! Why do you think I took you to the Colosseum and this particular barge instead of a quicker taxi-pod?"

The freight carrier slowed down and approached the underground entrance of the Milton Citadel.

"Ready?"

Hetch pulled the pistol out and checked the safety. Splice unlocked the toolbox and slid the case out from under a dirty blanket and piles of tools.

"Time to meet Mr. Weller."

To be continued...

TAD "