Weary Traveler

Murmuring voices filled the air with an electric buzz, lingered for a short moment. And then, a wave of commotion erupted from the corpos nearest the staircase as a scarlet tuxedo with silver pinstripes burst from the crowd, launched several feet across the dance floor, and landed with a booming thump that sent ripples of energy through the air.

Zoxillian spread his arms wide and absorbed the room’s aggressive round of applause for his feat of appearance like some shady basement magician. He sneered at Mitch while he swaggered to Vincent. Both men wrapped their arms around each other’s shoulders, turned in a full circle while waving at the crowd, and then stopped to glare at Mitch and Nova.

Mitch glanced from one to the other. His tight lips clamped shut, jaw clenched so tight that his teeth croaked and head trembled. A fiery ember flickered in his belly, crawled through his heart, crept up his throat and into his pale face, turning it several shades redder. Myriad thoughts raced through the electrified synapses of his brain. Heightened emotions seized his heart…

Anger. Regret. Pain. Rage. Fear.

“Do you know him?” Nova whispered.

Mitch nodded.

“Is he dangerous?”

“That depends, little lady,” Zox said, stepping towards Nova. “How much has your man admitted to you?”

Zox walked with his hands clasped behind his back along the perimeter of the crowd.

“What lies has this man, Mitch Henderson, told?” Zox shouted at the crowd as if gracing them with a professorial lecture. “What truths remain hidden…?Because the man I know as Mitch Henderson is not this opulent, corpo hero I see standing before me this evening. Oh, no, no, no… He is not this artificial creature in his fancy tuxedo with a beautiful woman wrapped around his arm, who is so far out of his league it is past the point of comedy and tipping over into tragedy,” he said, shaking his head and wagging his finger at Mitch. “Oh, no, no, no! The Mitch Henderson that I know… the true Mitch Henderson… is a bum!”

Hundreds of drunken corpos gasped, covered their mouths. They turned to one another, tried to focus their intoxicated gaze for long enough to whisper a few coherent words.

Outrageous!

Not possible!

“A fucking bum! It is the truth!” Zox screamed, growing in stature as his words struck the corpos’ ears. “This lazy, rotten, stinking, credit-less bum was living on the streets of Rosenfell, scrounging for booze, bonzos, and synthetics in the garbage before I picked him up and fixed his disgusting brain. I am the reason! Me! Zoxillian the Third! That this bum was able to escape from the poverty and filth in the alleys and gutters, and rise up Rotech’s ranks… climb the corpo ladder, so that he could trick each one of you into believing he is a real corpo. He is not, I tell you! He stole our Memory Mod technology and used it to repair the trauma of his past and improve his life here in the present. My data will show that the Zox speaks the truth.”

The entire crowd burst into a raucous frenzy. Hundreds of rambling voices shot from contorted faces. They threw up aggressive fists and shouted profanities at Mitch and Nova. The echoing corpo consensus was total exile. They declared the bum guilty of treason. Demanded he be banished from Rosenfell to fend for himself in the barren badlands.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Vincent said, raising his hands into the air, “please, calm yourselves. Everything is under control. Rotech is, and will always be, in control. I have seen the data and can confirm what our great hero, Zoxillian, is saying. This man, Mitch Henderson, is an imposter. A fake. A fraud. A criminal. A dirty, disgusting bum who has no place amongst you, fine leaders of Rosenfell.”

“This bum!” Zoxillian screamed, stomping while throwing up his arms like a circus showman. “This degenerate! This loser! Improved his life using Rotech’s Memory Mod, and now he thinks he is as good as you, my fellow, wealthy, and powerful corpos. I dare say that this bum… thinks he is better than you!”

The ballroom hissed, booed at Mitch as he shrank further into himself, digging deeper into his mind. Burrowing further into his unconscious, fighting back the flashes of light that ripped across his vision and tore through the frail fabric of his universe.

Mitch lowered his head, pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Well?” Vincent said. “Nothing to say for yourself? You disgusting bum.”

Mitch shook his head, inhaled a deep breath. And then, he chuckled.

At first, just a quiet snicker, like he was holding it back from a humorless executive in a boardroom, only to have it swell and evolve into a deep, bellowing guffaw that overcame every sound in the ballroom.

Every single one of the corpos’ faces twisted into awkward shapes that ranged from confusion to fascination, revulsion to pity. The entire ballroom, including Nova, stared at Mitch as if he had gone mad. Lost his mind. Snapped like an ankle in the intense heat of a street fight. It was like the thin illusion of his reality had finally been popped by an errant needle and the crowd watched as he deflated into nothingness.

And then, Mitch stopped. Silent. He looked up. A gaping smile filled his face from cheek to cheek, flashing his synthetic whites.

“You know, Vincent… I thought you were smarter than that,” Mitch said. “I had high hopes that you wouldn’t go down this road. That you could just look away and forget about my past because my past is none of your fucking business. But here we are…” he said, breaking away from Nova and marching around the perimeter of the crowd. “Now would be a good time to tell your people about all of the lies you have told. One lie after another. All to keep the truth hidden. So... go ahead, Vincent. Tell them. Tell them about your past. Tell them where you really came from.”

Vincent’s eyes flicked across the crowd’s questioning glances.

“Don’t be preposterous,” he said. “I have nothing to say because I have nothing to hide. I was born a corpo and I will die a corpo. Every single person at Rotech knows this. I am a God amongst men. I am the king of corpos. There is nothing a bum, a rotten criminal, could ever say to take that from me. You will be sent back to the streets where you belong. No one will remember your name. I will go down as the greatest-”

“Oh, give it a rest, Vinnie,” a woman’s voice yelled from somewhere in the mob.

Every head in the room swiveled, scanned the crowd for the source, discovering Eleanor as she emerged from the parting people and stepped onto the golden dance floor.

The crowd chattered, whispered. Inaudible at first before becoming more distinguished once the corpos recognized the intruder.

“That’s her!” some shouted.

“I thought she was dead.”

“The Oracle!”

“Almighty O!”

“Praise to Rosenfell’s greatest hacker!” a man on the edge of the dance floor yelled, dropping to his knees and prostrating himself. “We are not worthy!” he shouted into the ground.

“Impossible,” Vincent said. “Security were ordered to kill you.”

“You aren’t the only one with friends in high places,” Eleanor said, marching forward.

“You are making a big mistake, Elle.”

“You should have left Mitch alone,” Eleanor said, as she passed Vincent. She shuffled over to Mitch and Nova, smiled at them, and then turned, leered at Vincent. “He is a good man and you are a wretched one.”

Eleanor turned her focus towards the faces of the corpos standing in front of her.

“It seems that the CEO of Rotech, the most powerful man in Rosenfell, has an issue with the origins of Mitch Henderson,” Eleanor said. “Allow me to enlighten you.”

She reached into her clutch, pulled out a thin, circular puck, and tossed it onto the ground. A beam of white particles shot into the air like a hazy floodlight. It spread over the dance floor and cast a static image and a muffled sound that hummed through the ballroom like an electric power line.

The monochromatic beam started to capture globs of color, slowly manifested from a muddled mess into an image of a young man in tattered, bum garments. His shoulders were hunched. Face, bloody and beaten, but a crooked-toothed smile spread across his face from earlobe to earlobe. His intense eyes looked ahead as he hobbled forward, stepping with his left foot, dragging his right, leaving a trail in the mud of a dimly lit street.

Hanging from the top of a red brick building, was a neon sign outlined in an orange, lopsided square and adorned with a white deer prancing above PORTLAND, OREGON in shimmering gold. OLD TOWN flickered in an eerie crimson across the bottom

“Vincent!” a woman’s voice cried out from behind the camera, “Vincent Walker, drag your bum leg over here!”

The crowd gasped, hands shot to their mouths in a weak attempt to block the shock from screaming out. Mitch looked around the ballroom, stared into the horrified, glossy eyes of the drunken corpos while Vincent watched in emotionless silence.

“Slow down, Eleanor!” the young, bum Vincent yelled. “Or else I’m gonna collapse right here and die in this puddle of mud and God knows what else.”

“You wouldn’t be the first bum to do so, and sure as hell won’t be the last. We’re almost to the tent. I’ll patch you up and we can rest there tonight. We’ll finish setting the explosives at the facilities tomorrow.”

“The corpos won’t know what hit ’em.”

The memory sucked back into the object on the floor, leaving the ballroom in a state of stunned silence. Wide eyes and gaping mouths stared across the dance floor, looked through one another like no one was there. As if hundreds of corpos had vanished. Dissolved from the sight of an impossible image that had shattered their reality. Filled their minds with a feeling of loss and emptiness. A loneliness centered around a delusion that had consumed their lives. A rotten illusion. A web of lies. Faces in a mirror.

And then, like a lit chalky tossed from a car window onto a patch of dry brush in the badlands, the corpos erupted into a frenzy of rage. Of pent up fury suppressed by a lifetime of booze and bonzos. Taking orders from a fucking bum.

“A bum! A bum!”

“Vincent Walker is a bum!”

“Leave Rotech!”

“Step down now!”

Vincent raised his hands above his head, forced a wrinkled smile. His face seemed to age twenty years in that moment as a lifetime of lies had finally caught up to him.

“Now, now, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to explain. This has all been one big misunderstanding,” Vincent shouted. But the words fell flat from his mouth, overtaken by the crowd’s ferocious babel.

“Your people have spoken, Vincent,” Mitch said.

“They don’t have that authority!” Vincent screamed so loud that his voice echoed through the ballroom, cracked marble, bounced off of the tall ceiling. The room grew quiet as he stepped up to Mitch. “You don’t have that authority!”

Mitch chuckled, shook his head.

“You would be correct. I do not have the authority,” Mitch said, letting go of Nova. “How about a vote, then, shall we?”

He stepped away from her and Eleanor and shuffled around the perimeter of the crowd, hands clasped behind his back.

“If the Rotech Executive Board would be so kind as to step forward when I call their name,” Mitch said. “Mr. Duncan Jackson... Mr. Craig Davis... Mr. Tony Russo... Dr. Kaito Matsumoto... and Mr. Vladimir Volkov.”

Mitch stopped at the center of the dance floor, turned around. Vincent was standing alone on his left. Eleanor and Nova were straight across from Vincent on Mitch’s right. While the other five members of the board manifested from the crowd, stood shoulder-to-shoulder, straight across from Mitch. They each wore identical, black tuxedos, white, collared shirts, with a black vest and tie. Their familiar faces smiled across the dance floor at their old friend.

“Board members,” Mitch said, scanning their faces from left to right, “the people of Rotech have spoken. They wish for their CEO, Vincent Walker, to be ousted from his position. To pay for his crimes from a lifetime of lies told to them so that he could steal, cheat, and manipulate his way to power. Through corruption, deceit, hypocrisy, obstruction, and all other manners of destructive force. If the board wishes to uphold the will of the people and give this company back to the city of Rosenfell, then raise your right hand and say, aye!” he said, pausing to drag and morph the tension. “Those in favor?”

Five hands shot high into the air.

“Aye!” they shouted, voices combined to create a single, booming sound that reverberated through the ballroom like a gunshot down an alley.

“Aye,” Mitch said, with his own hand raised above his head. “The ayes have it, Vincent.”

“Overruled,” Vincent said.

“Pardon me!” a woman’s voice interjected from the parting crowd on Mitch’s right. Winifred appeared at the edge of the dance floor and then slowly shuffled over to Nova and Eleanor. “The High Table of Rosenfell is witness to the board’s six-to-one vote. We will ensure a smooth transition of the company as it is returned to the great people of this municipality. Corpos, nomads, and bums alike.”

“It’s decided, then,” Mitch said.

“You…” Vincent said in a hushed voice. His eyes were aimed at the ground, head shook back and forth. “You ungrateful imbecile,” he said, looking up at Mitch. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”

The strange sound started out as a small chuckle, as if Vincent forced himself to laugh at a bad joke. The longer it went on, the louder it became. Until it mutated into a hysterical cackle. A sonic, maniacal madness like a patient screeching and clawing at the conspiring walls in a Rotech asylum.

And then, he clamped his mouth closed. Cut off any sound from exiting his body. He raised his chin. Flashed fiery eyes burning in a feral rage, glared into the watchful, questioning eyes of his former people.

“Goodbye… Mitch Henderson,” Vincent said, as his right hand shot beneath his jacket, pulled out a foggy, iron revolver with a mahogany handle, pointed it at Mitch.

“No!” Nova screamed.

Mitch’s eyelids split, uncovered adrenalized pupils. His hands crept upwards to the sides of his dizzy head… closed his eyes… prepared his mind for the darkness of death when a blood-boiling scream ripped through the ballroom.

His eyes flung open, watched as Vincent’s severed forearm sliced off of his gory elbow and thumped against the wooden floor, dropping the gun at his feet. The tech-tyrant dropped to his knees, clenched his bloody nub.

“I keep this,” Vladimir Volkov said with a single, stern nod, gazing at the lightsaber in his hands. He kicked the pistol away from Vincent, closed the blue beam, and tucked the saber handle back into its holster underneath his jacket, strolled back to the other board members.

“You couldn’t meet up before the ball but you had enough time to steal the lightsaber, huh?” Duncan Jackson asked.

“Nyet. No steal. First, I borrow lightsaber. But now I keep since I take old man’s arm. It’s the Russian way,” Mr. Volkov said, peering at each board member. “There are four of you, and four different tech left, you choose.”

“I’ll take the GravGun,” Tony Russo said, adjusting his tie. “I could use it for protection from home invaders and such.”

“Home invaders?” Craig Davis asked. “Who in the hell would-”

“Look out!” a woman screamed.

The ballroom followed the woman’s voice.

Vincent wavered on both knees. His savage eyes electrified like ghost-white bulbs cracked by bloody veins. A thin strip of saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth onto his tuxedo’s lapel. His shaky left arm was raised, holding Jefe’s golden-chrome plasma pistol in his limp grip, barrel aimed at Mitch, shaky finger over the trigger.

Mitch saw the exact moment the thought appeared in Vincent’s mad mind. Watched as his arm shifted away from him, pointed at Nova standing between Eleanor and Winifred.

Mitch’s body turned, legs kicked into a sprint before his conscious mind could process what was happening. When he opened his eyes he faced down the barrel, stared into Vincent’s eyes just as the shot fired.

The plasma beamed a hole through the fabric of the Universe, blasted through Mitch’s chest. Killing-

Mitch gasped. His body flung backwards, slid through a puddle of mud. His lungs heaved, sucked in frantic breaths.

“Holy shit!” he yelled in a raspy voice, choked by mucus that coated his throat. Fog from his warm breath rose and fell, rose and fell, from his mouth. “Fuck... fuck... what the fuck!”

He coughed, inhaled a lungful of foul air through his mouth. An icy chill burned the back of his throat, squirmed up his nostrils, added more tears to his watery eyes.

He patted his chest, checked for the ray gun’s entrance wound. Nothing. Then raised his hands. They were coated with black crud and mud. His right hand balled into a fist, clenching a baggie stuffed with dirty bonzos.

A purple-white aura radiated from his skin like his odorous stench expelled enlightened energy. He turned his arms over, questioned their existence, pinched his flesh, smacked his cheeks.

And then, he looked up, sniffed the alley’s stench, stared into the darkness. Crumbled walls towered over him like maimed, stone giants, trapping him. He climbed onto his feet, wiped his hands off on his tattered, camouflage cargo pants, gazed at his reflection staring up at him, looked deep into his awakened eyes blinking in the faint ripples. The blood vessels had popped, leaving his eyeballs looking like panes of cracked glass traced with blood.

Mitch backed away from his reflection, cocked his right arm back, and launched the bonzos far into the alley, watched them disappear into the shadows. A distant relic of his former self. A crutch for the void that had swelled within him from an alternate reality of pain and suffering. A life absent of love.

He turned, sprinted out of the alley and onto the main street. The neon lights of Twilight District illuminated skyscrapers, cast a rainbow of color against the veil of gray wafting through Rosenfell’s polluted sky.

He slowed his pace into a slow jog, powered down into a brisk walk.

“Hey, fella!” Reggie said, jiving and grooving to the electro-jazz beat. “How about a-”

“Not now, Reggie,” Mitch said, shoving past the owner.

Mitch reached the bar, froze as his bum eyes looked upon the angelic, Nova Zion. She wore a low-cut, black tank top, and a jean jacket. Her auburn hair was pulled back, away from her face, tied in a ponytail.

Mitch’s frantic heart skipped three beats, climbed into his throat, rattled his teeth. He gulped down his heart caught in his windpipe, swiped the sweat that gathered at the balding wisps of his wrinkled forehead.

“Excuse me…” Mitch said, stepping closer, reaching out. “Miss Nova Zion?”

She looked up, gazed at Mitch with her lime green eyes.

“Hey there, Cowboy,” she said, smiling. “What can I get ya?”

THE END