Weary Traveler

Two armored mercenaries suited in matte black uniforms guarded the weapon. They towered over the case like steel barriers, each one over six feet tall with wide, bulky shoulders. Snug over their heads, were tactical helmets with red goggles for an augmented heads-up display. Their crimson, cyclops eyes, scanned for movement… searched for threats… hunted for thieves… Each clutched a carbon fiber machine gun in their gloved hands. A necklace of bullets draped around their necks, fed into the weapon’s ammunition chamber.

Mitch searched the surrounding area. His eyeballs bounced from one broken building to the next. Frosty moisture permeating Rosenfell’s winter air clung to the crumbled stone walls, reflecting the shifting aerial fortress of gray-black death.

And then, his eyes zipped towards a rusted fire escape dangling on the side of the brick wall behind the armory. It stretched up the length of the building, all the way to the roof.

Mitch chewed on his lower lip, nodded, and jumped to his feet. He raised his chin and puffed out his chest, slowed his pace as he made the trek down the street, crossing in front of the railgun case, whistling a conspiring tune. His head turned slightly over his right shoulder, peeked from the corner of his eyes at the weapon illuminated by artificial, white rays that shined up from a panel beneath the pedestal.

“Keep walking, bum!” the guard on the left shouted. He stomped forward, stretched over the barrier, and shoved Mitch’s right shoulder with the side of his machine gun.

Mitch stumbled with quick stuttering steps through a swamp of gooey mud, steadied his balance, and turned down the alley behind the armory. With each pounding step, his woozy, empty, bonzo-less head ached as his swelled brain thumped against his skull.

He crept through the shadowed darkness and stopped in front of a gang of fuming dumpsters stuffed with mountains of filth. They steamed with synthetic flies clinging to the aroma of rot and decay. Programmed by the corpo gods to hover around garbage and stick their faces in the disgusting, putrid junk tossed by the people of Twilight District. Bums of the synthetic animal kingdom. Mitch’s robotic brethren.

He reached up, wrapped his fingers over the dumpster’s edge, and pulled his skeletal body up and over, rolled, and then climbed to his shaky legs. Risen from the depths of reeking muck like a bum reborn from the trash of the past.

His right foot prodded, then left. Arms spread wide like wings, steadying himself as he made his way across the top layer. Garbage crunched and shifted beneath his shredded sneakers, receiving a free paint job that might melt the remaining synthetic leather and cheap rubber.

Mitch bent at the waist and scanned the top layer of gunk and slime and grime and filth. Hands sorting through sharp, reddish-brown chunks of rusted metal. Tossing them to the side until he-

“Bingo,” he said, holding up one curved like a fish hook big enough to puncture the jaw of a synthetic hammerhead.

He hitched the hook over his loose waistband and tramped across the remaining path of garbage to the brick wall, reached up and grabbed hold of the lowest rung. His trembling arms pulled his sickly body up to the next rung. And the next. Rusted metal croaking and groaning as if it communicated using some kind of secret metallic language. Aching limbs struggling all the way up to the top.

He slung his right arm over the roof’s edge, then left, heaved the rest of his body over and rolled onto his back. Bits of gravel coated with black sludge and ice dug through the holes in his coat, scratching his raw skin, grinding further into his feral scalp with each exhausted breath blowing stinky fog from his mouth, spreading like a sewer bubble over his body. His lungs gasped for the smallest trace of oxygen that remained in the air at the higher altitude, creeping closer and closer to the menacing cloud of creeping death looming above.

He rocked back and forth like a synthetic turtle that had tipped onto its shell, rolled onto his side, and then inched upwards onto his feet. As he rose, he closed his eyes and remained in place to allow the blood to return to his head. It pushed the pulsing white light out of his vision, calmed the ringing that rattled through his ears.

Mitch puffed out his chest, cleared the phlegm that coated his throat, hocked a loogie, and launched it from his lips high into the air with the force of his entire body. The glob of putrid saliva sailed over the edge of the roof in a symmetrical arch, dropped from the atmosphere like a Rotech missile in the night, and splattered on the muddy road with a gooey plop that slapped the legs of a crowd of nomads.

“Damn!” Mitch said, punching the air. “Missed ’em.”

He tiptoed along the edge of the roof, overlooking the neon streets below, peering at the tops of the heads of nomads swirling to and fro like a colony of synthetic ants whose primary life purpose was to buy and consume, eat and destroy.

Mitch dropped to his knees and peeked over the edge at the Tech Armory directly below. The guards were stiff, unmoving from their position next to the railgun resting within its dome of light. He slipped his pack off of his back, sifted through the contents: empty beer cans, bonzo containers, and chunks of resourceful metal. They clanked against each other as his hands stretched further down, wriggled to the bottom, squeezed and pulled out a bundle of frayed rope. He unwound it, digging his long nails into the knots, and slung it across the roof so that it slithered around his feet like a swarm of synth-snakes. Then unhitched the makeshift hook from his trousers and tied one end of the rope to it, knotting it three times around the shaft.

He gripped the rope with his left hand, fed it through his right, slowly lowered the hook. His tongue stuck out of the right side of his mouth, clamping down on an extra bit of concentration to still his mind and quiet the incessant chatter that haunted the depths of his unconscious. A loop of miserable thoughts and painful memories, nipping at the edges of his brain. Forever threatening to drag his consciousness beneath the surface of reality, pull him down into the prison of his past.

Chomping. Chewing. Devouring.

Jitters rattled through his frail arms. Icy nerves flowed through his veins as the hook descended. Blown back and forth by the frosted winter wind whipping through the electrified streets of the Twilight.

His eyes tunneled in on the railgun. On the light. Focus. Focus. Darkness creeping in from the corners of his vision until the dome had consumed every sliver of his conscious awareness. Preventing every other sense from entering his body like he had stepped into a vacuum between solar systems.

The rusted shark hook broke the plane of the guards’ enormous heads, wavered back and forth, back and forth, like an abandoned swing. Inching closer to their armored bodies, threatening to snag and fling one of them off of his feet.

Mitch stopped the descent, steadied the swinging hook. Inhaled a deep breath through his clogged nostrils, coated with blood and dirt. He filled his lungs, exhaled a slow stream out of his raw lips. Then continued lowering the hook. Four feet… three… two… one…

The sharp point of the hook passed the edge of the dome’s pedestal. He swung and lifted, swung and lifted, until the hook snagged beneath the metallic lip.

“Gotcha,” Mitch muttered, licking away the beads of cold sweat that had gathered atop the stubble on his upper lip.

He climbed off of his knees and stood in a low squat, feet spread wide to steady his base as he wrapped both of his rough hands around the rope.

And then, he plucked the case off of the ground like a yanked tooth. The sudden movement tilted the dome forward, nearly scratched the pant leg of the guard on the left. Mitch choked on a pocket of air, eyeballs squeezed from their sockets. His throat constricted, lungs choked by his gasping breaths as he shifted his arms backward to compensate for the weight of the bulky case swinging far below.

He grunted and heaved the case upward. Right hand over left. Letting the slack from the rope tangle around his feet bracing against the roof as the dome passed the halfway point.

And then, a jolt ripped through the rope, vibrated up Mitch’s arms, dome spinning like an alien saucer. He squinted, leered at a piece of the rope just above the hook. Frayed strands started to unravel, causing the case to whip around in tight circles and lower back towards the ground.

“Uh oh…” Mitch said, halting the heist.

He sucked in a breath, held it, and allowed the case to spin to a stop. Slowly pulling it up the remaining half until the railgun hung just below the edge of the roof.

He let the case settle, reached out and pinched the tiny latch, slid the glass panel all the way to the right. Then he squeezed his right hand inside. The light from the dome magnified the gunk seeped into his hand like it was painted with a permanent pigment of infected grime. Black and brown sludge etched onto his fingernails like permanent ink.

His sweaty palm wrapped around the railgun’s handle and plucked it off of its perch. The lift caused a faint hiccup to jolt through the case, rippled up the frayed rope and snapped more strands, lowering the case a few more inches.

Mitch’s blood cooked, rocketed through his veins, shot through the vessels of his beating heart, pounding, pounding, pounding against his chest.

He tilted his hand sideways so that the railgun lay horizontal, slid his arm back the rest of the way, catching the edge of the dome with the butt of the gun, snapping the final strands of the rope.

“Oops,” Mitch said, right hand and railgun dangling in the open air, unblinking eyes following the empty dome as it dropped like an anvil back towards the ground, colliding atop the head of the guard on the right, dropping him into an unconscious heap on the muddy ground.

Glass shattered like an explosion of ice, shooting sharp fragments against the guard on the left, causing him to flinch and then whip around towards the right, machine gun raised, tucked into the crook of his right arm. His red goggles scanned the ground, the empty case, his motionless partner. And then, he spun around, faced the building, tilted his head back, stared straight into Mitch’s eyes peeking over the edge of the roof.

“You!” the guard shouted. He pointed his gun’s muzzle at Mitch, fired off a burst of rounds.

“Whoa!” Mitch yelled, leaning away from the roof’s edge as the bullets clipped the brick, sprayed chunks into the air. He made a motion to turn towards the center of the roof, tripped on the rope and tipped backwards, arms flailing, onto his butt. A beam of blue energy shot from his right hand and illuminated the gray sky like a flash of artificial lightning had burst from his palm. “Shit!” he screamed, reaching towards his feet, untangling the rope strung around his legs.

More shots from the guard’s rifle burst, splattered into the roof’s edge, launched red pellets of fire into the air.

Mitch kicked the bundle away, crawled across the rope until he escaped from its grasp, and then scrambled to his feet, sprinted across the long row of connected roofs. Arms swinging, legs pounding. Railgun clutched in his tight grip, index finger off of the trigger. Cold sweat squeezed from the clogged pores of his steamy skin. Frantic eyes looked left, right, searching for an exit through the foggy darkness swirling around the polluted air.

A small gap between two of the roofs appeared. Twenty feet ahead… ten feet…

His mind hesitated, sore muscles tensed. He gritted his crooked teeth. Drunken blood rising from the depths, reeling from the faded high from his last booze and bonzo bender. Tattered sneakers pounded against the soot and ruble, leaving a trail of footprints in his wake.

He held his breath, planted his right foot on the edge of the roof, and launched into the ether. His exhausted face twisted into a frightened mess, tongue flopped out, flapped in the wind like a Helo propeller, tasting the spoiled mist and foul fumes. His legs continued to sprint in midair as if they still stood on solid ground. Arms flailed in looping circles like two strings falling in the wind.

His left leg collided against the adjacent roof, collapsed from the weight of his body, and sent him into a sharp slide across the gritty asphalt. The railgun slipped out of his hand, spun, skidded to a stop ten feet away.

He jumped to his feet and scooped up the weapon, hobbled towards the opposite end of the roof, and gazed over the fire escape at the fort of wooden pallets wedged in the mud and the black and blue tarps slung up against the brick wall.

“Eureka,” Mitch said.

He kicked his legs over the edge onto the rickety fire escape, and lugged his beaten body back and forth down the switchback of metallic steps. The weight of his clumsy corpse ignited a symphony of eerie croaks and groans like some kind of impoverished orchestra, echoing as if a metal-eating monster chomped its gnashing jaws within the shadows.

Mitch jumped over the remaining steps and landed on the squishy ground with a muddy plop, splashing gunk into the air. He galloped forward. Head tilted down, examining the gun. The muzzle still sizzled with a trail of steam, and the entire weapon was coated with a thick layer of grime that blocked some of the strip of blue light along the barrel.

He grasped a handful of his coat and scrubbed away the mud, soot, rubble and drips of blood that had oozed from the cuts on his palms. Added a few dribbles of sloppy drool for an extra bit of lather and polish.

“Perfecto,” he said, holding up the railgun in front of his face, turning it to capture the streams of neon light that shined in from the Twilight.

He cleared his throat, plopped a glob of saliva outside the fort as if to claim it as his own.

“Troll!” he yelled, shaking the canopy like some caged, synthetic animal prodding with its paw, sniffing for a whiff of something edible. “Troll! Got ’ur gun.”

Something that sounded like an obese bum had rolled onto his back in the dead of night, tongue blocking his windpipe, burst from behind the tarps. The canopy rustled, swayed, before the small flap dropped away and the bonzo troll’s head poked out. His eyes were glazed over. Shrunken pupils like micro blackholes, swallowing Mitch.

“What’chu want?” the troll asked.

“What’chu mean, what I want? I got your damn railgun,” Mitch said, dangling the spit-shined weapon in front of the troll’s empty gaze.

“Oh yeah! Hold on…” the troll said, disappearing behind his plastic curtains.

Mitch scoffed, drummed the fingers on his left hand against his thigh.

“Hurry up, troll. Don’t got all night.”

“Quit your yapping. You don’t got no where to be.”

The plastic canopy wall flung open, unveiling a patch of blackness traced with thick smoke and the stench of blasters like a synthetic skunk dwelled within. The troll burst from the hazy shadow, baggie of jellies clutched in his loose grip.

Mitch licked his lips, held out his left hand, palm up, beckoning to the jellies.

“Here,” he said, jabbing the railgun forward.

The troll glanced at the weapon, then back to Mitch, irises wandering around their sockets like a magic eight ball.

“Didn’t ask for no muddy railgun,” he said, pulling the jellies to his hairy chest.

“Alright,” Mitch said, aiming the barrel between the troll’s bushy brows. “How ’bout I kill you and take both?”

“Whoa, take it easy, bum,” the troll said, holding up his hands.

“Well?”

“Don’t be so fucking sensitive. Here.”

He flung the baggie against Mitch’s chest. It rolled down his body and splashed against the muddy ground.

“Give it here,” the troll said, licking his lips, eyeing the railgun.

Mitch kept the muzzle pointed at the troll while he dipped down and scooped up the baggie.

“C’mon, now, hand it over,” the troll said, reaching towards Mitch.

The words echoed through Mitch’s mind as mere mouth noises. Their meaning not fully grasped as his conscious awareness homed in on the jellies. Jolts of anticipatory dopamine zipped through his neural pathways, carrying familiar messages and electric signals across his body. He shoved the baggie into one of his cargo pockets and tossed the railgun into the air.

“Fool!” the troll screamed. His face expanded, eyes gaped, erasing their drowsy high. He spread his legs, bent his knees, and squared his stance towards the spinning hunk of metal and plasma energy, guiding his body beneath the weapon and jabbing his palms into the air. He smacked the gun with his right, then left, clapped and clamped on the end of the handle with both hands, muzzle pointed at the mud. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord, God, Holy Savior,” he said, panting, gasping for breath.

“Gracias,” Mitch said, turning and marching out of the alley. Back to his tent to chew on the jellies and melt his mind beneath Rosenfell’s neon glow and smoldered steel sky.