The Wake Up Call (part 1.16)
Chapter 1.16: RETRIBUTATION??
The badly beaten woman cried out in pain and clawed at her sides as if possessed by evil spirits. It seemed as if she wanted to die, to cast off her mortal torment and extinguish the last flames of life. Anyone with an ounce of humanity might have granted her this gift; 'a mercy killing' but neither Hetch or the stewardess were willing to perform this duty, and as for the chef, he was still hiding in the back of the locked kitchen behind some thick, metal doors. The poor creature squirmed around on the seat in a desperate attempt to find a position which would cause her the least possible pain.
The stewardess knelt by her side and stroked her hair. It offered a fragment of comfort, but it fell far short of what was really needed.
"She needs medical help."
But Hetch failed to answer. The events beyond the dirty cafe window had his full attention. The group of troops made their slow, bullying path towards the cafe doors, intimidating pedestrians and street traders along the way. The chaotic scene reminded Hetch of an evacuation of a slum area just before it is demolished in order to construct a new, more profitable building. His gut-feeling was to quietly creep out of a side door and lose himself in the dense stream of people heading towards the monorail entrances, but other things kept this cowardly plan at the back of his mind. For the time being that is.
"Did you hear me?"
"I know."
"If we don't do something she will die."
"I know."
"Don't just say 'I know' do something!"
Life is cheap:
The narcos are seen by most as a plague, a cancer needing to be cut out before their toxic habit spreads any further. This mind-set is shared by the death squads that patrol the more well protected zones in the city. These hidden teams are the executioners of the undesirable members of society, the homeless, the narcos and the mentally unstable citizens. Their brutal exploits still remain unnoticed by the majority of the city simply because no-one wants to admit that they exist. For most their alleyway killings are nothing more than a cheap means of population control, to rinse the wretched 'sub-humans' off the streets. The fragmented police squads owned by huge corporations together with industrial sabotage and gang wars have all helped to make this nightmare scenario a reality. The killing of a pusher, junkie or prostitute no longer causes a moral outcry. The fact is that most citizens see their deaths as a social good, removing another 'parasite' from their city.
The stewardess pushed back the reddened eyelids of the woman and watched as the uncovered eyeballs danced around like a pair of broken eggs in a dirty ashtray.
"I can't do anything for her." came the reluctant words from the stewardess.
From the corner of Hetch's eye he saw a black cloud of scoot-jockeys on their monstrous bikes approach through the near-stationary lines of traffic. Their low, wide, two wheeled machines drove a dangerous path between the transporter pods and crowds of people all trying to push their way towards the monorail entrance.
"Damn you Mewco, are you listening?"
"Yes."
"So why don't you do something?"
"I'm waiting for some transport."
"So you have called a taxi-pod or something?"
"No."
The woman cried out in pain and spat out another mouthful of blood and greasy looking junk food.
"How do you intend to get us to the Destiny bridge? It's more than 30 blocks away and with all the crowds and road-blocks outside it will take hours."
The biker gang rode up and down the sidewalks and steps terrorising the unsuspecting pedestrians and each other with games of chicken and throwing half-empty bottles which they had 'found' in a nearby bar.
"Have you got a magic carpet or a lamp with a Genie inside?"
"Nope. I've got something better; a plan. Get me a drug hypo and a bottle of whiskey." he replied with a smile.
Meanwhile outside, the troops were attempting to control the wild scoot-jockey gang, which met with sounds of laughter and even more bottle smashing. The troops couldn't open fire with all the civilians around them and even if they did they guessed that the bikers would soon return their bullets and a few hundred more.
"Now get by the door and shout if you see anything."
"Like what?"
Too late, Hetch had disappearing behind the kitchen door and was frantically searching through the greasy cupboards looking for something.
The stewardess also searched. After three empty pockets she found a dirty hypo on the woman's twitching body. The woman made a mis-timed snatch at the hypo and half fell off the long, round seat. A string of incomplete words slid from her mouth before gravity overcame her strength.
"How do you know Mewco?"
The woman gave a puzzled shake of her head.
"Mewco." repeated the stewardess and pointed towards the kitchen.
"No one. I need hit."
"Listen to me. Listen to me."
The stewardess shook the woman, more violently than she wanted to, and received another dose of blood down her clothes.
"Answer me! How do you know Mewco? What does he mean to you, who are you?"
But the woman sank back under another veil of self-induced narco spasms.
"Oh, I give up. You, you stupid spaced-out bitch!"
The stewardess pushed her long, dark hair back from her face and greeted her blood and vomit stained clothes with a weary sigh. Recent events were taking their toll on her mind, body and uniform.
"That's one hell of a bedside manner you have, Florence Nightingale."
She spun around the see Hetch standing by the doorway, his face grotesque with rage. It was a shock to see this much anger for someone else. Mewco did care for someone, himself. Putting his own self-interest before everything and everyone else was legendary, so why the change of heart now? It didn't make sense. But then again, nothing from the previous day made any sense. She was on a roller-coaster and wanted to get off.
"Is this how you treat all the passengers on your shuttle?"
"I want some answers."
"You're in no position to give me orders."
He could see her body visibly sink, there was a slight illusion of shame in it, but, he thought, 'was this another one of her silly little games? he hadn't forgotten that little welcome party in her apartment'.
"If it wasn't for me you would still be chained up in that rat infested basement along with your two, heavy handed friends. And let's not forget the little 'fun' we had in the alleyway."
Her eyes closed, her body grew tired and she dropped like a stone onto the long seat.
"I'm tired Mewco. I'm tired and scared."
Hetch spotted some members of the biker gang heading directly for the door, he only had a few seconds before they would be inside, closely followed by the troops, no doubt.
"I can't go on and I don't want to spend the rest of my life running from my past, or from shadows."
'She seems sincere', thought Hetch, 'maybe there is a chance of... NO, those bullshit happy endings never happen'.
One of the bikers rattled the locked door by pulling on the steel mesh on the outside.
"Enough chit-chat. Open the door, then get ready."
"Get ready for what?" she asked lifting her head up, but he had disappeared again.
"Open the fucking door!" Yelled the biker, shaking the door with both hands.
Inside the kitchen the chef crept out from behind the hefty door with the words 'Private: Staff only' and various pornographic photos stuck to it's sleazy looking exterior. He peeked around the corner and watched Hetch load the equally slimy 'instant-hot' power cooker with cans and cans of fly repellent, air-freshening spray, a bottle of whiskey and small, red gas canisters which are used to refill lighters. Then he stood on tip-toes and tried to make out who the noisy customers were who were trying to get inside. He could only catch glimpses of faces and shoulders.
"Yo, fatso!"
His large, hairy frame jumped at this unexpected remark.
"Get your ass outside, now!"
The chef backed nervously around the edge of the kitchen, trying to keep himself as far away from Hetch (and the armband) as he possibly could.
"No problem. I don't want any trouble."
"BEEP, BEEP.. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP... BEEP"
Hetch brushed away some unknown dried food stains on the cooker's keypad and entered a random time setting. This was something he had done a million times before while hanging around the economy food stations or emptying terminal shuttle lockers and selling anything valuable inside. Cheap, fast food was easy to come by. Any street kid with an ounce of smarts could empty a new vending machine quicker than you could say 'diagnostic mode by-pass'. Hetch's diet consisted of bland, mass produced meals which these kind of ovens were invented for. He pushed open the door of the chef's sleazy back room and slowly entered.
Meanwhile, the stewardess was greeted by a group of hungry looking bikers out to stir up trouble in this squalid eating house. The first one through the door clenched his oily fist around the long, dark hair at the base of her skull and pulled violently down causing her to release a clipped cry of pain.
"Oh baby! Are you in the wrong place at the wrong time."
She closed her eyes as he licked he face. His rough stubble brushed over her cheek leaving a red hue behind. More shifty looking individuals poured through the rusty door frame and immediately directly their attention towards the two females.
"Looks like we're gonna have ourselves a little party."
The chef peeked through a small, horizontal spy hole towards the cafe's dirty entrance. His eyes darted left and right scanning the newly arrived 'customers'. After a moment his mood seemed to change. He became more relaxed. Gone was his previous twitchy behaviour. This was noted by Hetch who was also frantically looking around, clocking both the seedy contents of the heavily protected store-room and the overweight chef.
Meanwhile two more bikers held the stewardess while their leader sniffed, squeezed and swore at her restrained body.
"My, My, what a fine piece of ass."
The semi-conscious narco woman laid still while more of the gang grappled with the rags she wore as clothes checking each piece of flesh and pocket with equally rough relish. Her state of mind, fried on a cocktail of impure drugs and alcohol, kept her from screaming, from crying out for help. She had been through this prelude to sexual attack countless times before either as a 'pleaser' or as one of life's unfortunate victims walking down the wrong dark alley late at night. Only the prospect of a mouthful of blood and unfinished food being ejected could protect her now.
The heavy features of the chef's sweaty face moved in the background towards the main bar. His hands cleaned a chipped drink container with an equally well-used cloth that hung from his belt like discarded spider's web filled with the remains of last month's left overs. It was more of an automatic behaviour to mask his fear than a desire to actually give a customer a hygienic glass to drink from.
"Look. I will do what you want." came the stewardess' trembling voice, it caught Hetch's attention for a brief moment before he resumed searching the over-filled cabinets and tall crates in the back office.
"She learns REAL fast. Doesn't she?" sneered the leader.
"Honey, you haven't got a choice!" and with this the back of his hand swept hard across her face. A chopped cry of pain escaped from her mouth and tumbled onto the floor tiles like an un-hatched egg from a bird's nest.
"Shut the fuck you bitch! Here, try screaming for help with this in your mouth!" the leader rammed a large, leather wallet-like key-ring into her mouth. Its collection of illegally gained key-cards, metal objects and strips of dirty material cascaded from the stewardess' reddened mouth like dreadlocks after a car crash.
Outside the troops pushed themselves past wave after wave of pedestrians and grid-locked traffic before being greeted by the other members of the biker gang. The lesser important group members pushed themselves in front of the door, attempting to mask the events inside from the troop's line of sight. Their impish antics succeeded in fuelling the rage of the troops who quickly resorted to brute force and the threat of hot ammo in the skulls of the street trash in leathers.
"What will it be?" asked the chef.
The leader shook his head back as if to order one of his underlings to carry out some pre-arranged transaction.
"Oh momma, what a pretty little arm band. Me HAS to have one of them!" He said pulling at the sleeves with his teeth and sniffing at the unwanted metal jewellery. She froze to the spot and offered out a joke, hoping to keep his attention away from trying to remove it.
"The next time I'm out shopping I will pick you one up."
The leader pushed her. Her back arched high over a table. With combined weight of the three bikers she had no choice but to lie on her back while the leader pushed himself even closer.
"Don't get cute. I eat cute little girls like you for breakfast. I'm gonna show you what a real man can do."
His belt loosened and his flaky jacket sleeves were being rolled up ready, when the cafe door was forced open by the troops who soon began to herd up the scoot-jockeys with their combat rifles. The gang all seemed unfazed by this event, no doubt they had seen this many, many times before.
"Oh gee honey, you didn't tell me we were gonna have visitors, and we all forgot to wear suits. Didn't we boys?"
The gang grunted with howls of laughter and began slamming their weapons against the cafe's tables, windows and their fists. The sound of chains, butterfly knives, ammo clips and pipes made the troops realise just how out-numbered they were.
"You!" shouted one of the troops.
"What the fuck is going on here?"
"Please, don't use bad language in front of the whores. Otherwise you will be wiping your ass with a hook after we tear your fucking arms off and feed them to you."
Hetch appeared behind the leader holding both of his arms upright like a nervous catapult whose rubber band had long since broke.
"Please. Don't hurt me."
"And which fucking rock did you crawl out from under, shit for brains?"
then he noticed the arm band.
"Well, well, well. Looks like we're got a pair of newly weds here boys and don't they look cute wearing matching arm bands?"
The troops stumbled about, unwilling and unsure how to handle the situation. These were rookie soldiers, fresh out of 'grunt school'. Their intensive training course from a pan-global corporation about riots never prepared them for this. Interrogating street traders was one thing, but a large gang of armed scoot jockeys was a whole new experience.
Hetch stared the leader straight in his face while slowly positioning himself between the leader and the stewardess.
"You lame fuck-wits can go and play soldier somewhere else, this is where the big boys hang out."
The troops looked at each other and at their surroundings. The idea of being hacked to pieces by this gang while outside the street erupted into another riot overcame their initial feelings of courage.
Pushing pass them through the narrow doorway was a familiar face. It was another member of this gritty gang. Only after the last troop had cowardly escaped outside did Hetch recognise the sweaty, oil soaked face of the newly arrived customer; it was the same face from the alleyway, the one survivor who had, like the recent troops, run away from Hetch and the stewardess.
"Ain't this pure sugar. You two already know Chan."
The stewardess looked up at Hetch. There was a desperate cry of fear in her eyes like she was begging for help, pleading for a quick escape. The heavy leather key ring gag in her mouth couldn't silence the terror in her look. He knew he had to do something but with their only means of help now disappearing along the crowded city streets outside all seemed lost.
"Never met him."
"Now that's real fucking strange. Ain't it Chan? Because he sure does remember you two."
With this he elbowed Hetch in his face, who dropped his knees and his still surrendering arms slapped loudly on the tiled floor. Chan moved slowly towards the crouching figure on the ground next to the gang's leader and removed his jacket in readiness to start a long and painful beating on Hetch. This was going to be bloody and brutal, and everyone in the cafe knew what was coming. It was like looking at the flavour enriched junk food pictures on the giant electronic menu boards, the writing was definitely on the wall.
B-O-O-M-!-!-!
A monumental explosion of sound burst from the kitchen. The timer on that grubby 'instant-hot' power cooker had finally expired and the full intensity of enhanced microwave heating elements had triggered its contents to violently detonate like a shower of shotgun pellets through it's toughened glass door. The large metal casing only helped to amplify this already ear-splitting shock wave noise.
This was the moment. Hetch lurched forwards on his hands and knees like a pit-ball charging into a parked transport pod. The top of his head collided sharply with the groin of Chan who instantly folded up in half like an elephant jumping onto a rotten skateboard. The other members of the gang took cover and scanned the streets for another sign of attack and to see where the explosion had come from.
Hetch pulled a metal pipe from up his right sleeve and coshed the knee-cap of the gang's leader. The bone cracking sound warned Hetch that this tall, heavy son-of-a-bitch was about to come crashing down to the ground holding a severely damaged leg. The stewardess kicked out with her shoes sending a sharp, pointed heel into the leader's face. The Chef reached under the bar and produced a badly maintained shotgun and fumbled with the loading the thick, red shells into it. One of the gang turned to see this, mistook this for the cause of the explosion and opened fire. Hetch frantically pulled at the legs of the stewardess who was still pinned down over the high table by the other two gang members who each held one of her arms. The chef's overweight body jerked uncontrollably as more and more bullets peppered it. One of the two scoot-jockeys released an arm as he reloaded. Hetch pulled again, this time she twisted onto her side and rolled off the table and onto the second gang member. The dirty, leather wallet fell from her mouth and across the floor making the key-cards dance about like a squid in a food mixer. The lifeless body of the chef slumped over the shot-pitted bar like a spent firework. The leader screamed out another string of agony infused foul language and continued to roll around on the floor holding his knee.
"Come on!" said Hetch in a half-muted tone.
He pushed her first and followed close behind. There on the floor lay the long, black trench coat of Mewco right where he had left it when first entering the cafe. For some strange reason he clenched it in his fist and dragged it behind him like the security blanket of a little kid, like something to hold tightly onto or hide under until all the monsters under the bed had gone. They crawled and scrambled into the relative safety of the dark corridors at the back of the cafe. The rest of the gang opened fire into the crowded streets outside in a blind panic. This time the troops had no choice but to return and deal with the cafe situation. Innocent pedestrians toppled over like discarded matches and some transport pods caught fire from the streams of hot lead wasps from the cafe's jagged, window frames. Pandemonium ensued in the streets as broken people and machinery all fought to take cover. The previous madness of the evacuation scenes paled into insignificance when compared to this newly cast war zone.
It would only be a matter of time before the cafe would be stormed and neutralised using blitz tactics. Guard dogs and search bots would then be sent to scan for survivors, not that there were likely to be any. The semi-automatic robots merely made the task of finding the dead bodies quicker and there were aleady enough of those in the cafe.
There on the central notice board was the menu, which looked like it had not been changed or cleaned for many, many months. At the top in a thick, heavy black font stood the words:
"Speciality of the day: Tomato Soup."
To be continued...